In his training and research role with WCER's Comprehensive Regional Assistance Center, Region VI, UW-Madison Professor of Educational Administration Kent Peterson focuses on school leadership in the context of education reform. Bifocal leaders promote purpose and spirit Kent Peterson promotes the concept of bifocal leadership. Schools need principal-managers, who, along with teachers, can see and respond to technical, rational issues. Good principal-managers collaboratively help create direction, order, and stability in order to improve outcomes. But a leader goes beyond technical issues to understand and respond to situations in symbolic ways.
Leaders bring out the symbolic, culture-shaping side of the principal's roles.
They work with staff and community to shape values, rituals, ceremonies, stories, and other symbolic forms that make work and learning more connected, value-driven, and meaningful. But rather than seeing management and leadership as polar opposites, Peterson considers them complementary in the work of principals. Terry Deal and I call this ability 'bifocal' leadership. Principals with 'bifocal' vision create both order and meaning. Bifocal principals find a balance between being traditional and innovative, tight and loose, inflexible and creative.