superior” was devised by Tannenbaum and Schmidt (Tannenbaum and Schmidt, 1958). Likert’s four-fold typology covers the same ground as the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum in a more succinct manner – it ranges from exploitive – authoritative to participative (Likert, 1967). Furthermore research into the “Human Side of Enterprise” (McGregor, 1960) highlighted the role of personnel operating inside the organisational system. The concept of administration was seen in terms of the “hierarchy of subordinate – superordinate relations” (Getzells, 1958:151) which exist within any “intricate social system” (ibid). Attention was directed to the fact that “administration always operates in an interpersonal – or social relationship” (ibid). Getzells, clearly influenced by both schools of thought, regarded organisations as comprising two “conceptually independent and phenomenally interactive dimensions” (152). The ideographic dimension with its emphasis on the social aspect of work, the context under which work takes place, which was regarded as complementary to the nomothetic dimension, which highlighted the job content itself and that of the institution as a whole. Getzells thus regarded organisational effectiveness as a function of both dimensions – the job context and the job content. Scientific management theory had, through the writings of Taylor, Fayol, and Gulick, directed its attention solely on the job task itself. It has thus favoured a highly structured bureaucratic style of organisation in the Weberian mode. Post 1950s writers, emphasising the social nature of work, attacked such structuring as rigid and restrictive. For them, the main function of any organisation was to facilitate individual development through better organisation of human relationships. Increased productivity, according to the human relations theorists, occurred not through the utilisation of task formulae but rather through concentrating on the worker himself and on his needs. Man was seen to become apart from, rather than part of, a mere machine.
The notion of school self-evaluation made inroads into the consciousness of principals and teachers in the wake of a Department publication in 2003, (DES, 2003). During the decades that followed SSE gradually moved towards centre stage. The Programme for Government, 2011 set out specific targets in relation to self-evaluation and school improvement; furthermore the National Strategy targeted at improving Literacy and Numeracy required all schools to engage in robust self-evaluation (DES, 2011c). The publication of guidelines on SSE “intended to support schools as they evaluate teaching and learning” (DES, 2012: 8) and the inclusion of SSE on schools’ professional development agendas has ensured its centrality in the minds and actions of principals and teachers. A further development in the early years of the 21st century was the emergence after more than three decades of discussion and ‘false dawns’ of the Teaching Council. As various sections of the Teaching Council Act, 2001, are enacted the Council assumes added importance in the lives of school personnel; in the areas of registration, the induction of beginning teachers, codes of professional conduct and in the near future in the area of CPD. 2.5 Life and Professional Career History 2.5.1 Forms of Life Writing A further block of literature including works by Gronn, Ribbins, Day, Bottery and others is apposite for inclusion in this review. These writers approached the study of headship/principalship from a life and professional career history perspective. One can categorise a number of forms of life writing within the genre as a whole. English (2006) identified twelve forms of life writing and discusses the contribution that each of these can make to “understanding the meaning of the decisions and actions of leaders” (141). He positions and lists the work of Ribbins as portrayals “…detailed account of a specific episode or event in a person’s or persons’ life/lives” (146) and prosopographies “a form of group
(1996) “disenchantment” and divestiture”. This makes allowances for those principals who were not disenchanted after many years in principalship but rather maintained high levels of professional satisfaction towards the end of incumbency. The third model therefore gave rise to “a framework of two ideal typical leadership pathways” Ribbins (2007: 64). Both pathways follow the same initial three phases: Making (formation), Becoming (accession) and Being (incumbency as initiation, development and autonomy). The pathways separate at the fourth phase into Moving On (enchantment and reinvention) and Moving Out (disenchantment and divestiture). Some authors studying headship transition, Weindling (1999) and Hart (1993) noted three stages of organisational socialisation through which leaders usually pass. In stage one the leader faces steep learning having arrived in the organisation and meeting its people. In stage two the leader attempts to accommodate to the work, the people and the culture of the organisation. Weindling (1999:91) comments that by stage three “stable patterns emerge but this is only visible in data from longitudinal studies”. Earley and Weindling (2007) based on a longitudinal study and drawing on research by Gabarro (1987), Hall and Parkey (1992), Day and Bakioglu (1996), Gronn (1993), Ribbins (1997) and Weindling (1999) suggest a model, encompassing six stages following preparation, mapping transitions in principalship. Such stages included entry and encounter (first months); taking hold (3-12 months); reshaping (year 2); reinforcement (years 3 to 4); consolidation (years 5 to 7), and plateau (year 8 and more). Ribbins (2008:64) enters caveats “…principals can enter at different stages and not all do so at stage one, … principals can pass through the stages at different rates, …. no single factor … determines a principal’s stage of development, … principals may operate at more than one stage at a time”.
“situated perspective” study of the principal, eschewing for the present a second level contextualised perspective and a third level contextualised in action perspective. I believed that face-to-face interviews across a range of issues and events would enable me to obtain a rich and comprehensive understanding of the perspectives and styles which principals bring to their work (6). 3.5 Types and Forms of Interview In selecting interview type I avoided the extremes. On the one hand I did not use the verbal questionnaire which I considered was overly structured with its responses redolent of quantitative research with “reality being hammered into shape by the interviewer” Ribbins (2007:209). On the other hand I did not use “discussions” with adjustable and open agendas or more informal, highly flexible ‘chats’. I considered that the best way to provide a framework within which principals would express their views in their own terms was a interview where I as the researcher would control broadly the agenda process of the interview “whilst leaving interviewees free, within limits, to respond as they see fit” (209). Like Smith and Bower-Brown (2010:119) I contend that “semi-structured interviews offer flexibility and allow the researcher to adopt a more natural, conversational approach”. I used a semi-structured interview schedule containing fifteen questions. I put the same questions to each respondent and permitted him/her to respond at ease. Where their responses raised issues that required probing I did this. In this context each respondent was not asked the same supplementary questions; when one respondent illustrated her responses by referring to the Delivering Equality of Opportunity In Schools (DEIS) initiative I pursued this matter with supplementary questions, otherwise useful and colourful data would have been lost. Pursuing DEIS issues with other respondents would not have made sense as their schools had no connection with the initiative. I was flexible to “the serendipity of conversation, in which one aspect gains more ground than another on some occasions” (Ribbins and Marland, 1994:31), thus capturing the enthusiasm and animation of respondents in full flow. I used the schedule in a flexible way when respondents wandered into territory that would be covered by
P1 highlights the necessity for ongoing quality “you never just settle for what might be good enough” (P1/64), echoes of Obama (2007), “better isn’t good enough”. She cautions against allowing the development of a narrow focus on literacy and numeracy scores and putting us “in danger of losing so much of what is good about our system and the breadth that’s in it” (ibid). She has created a culture involving an ‘open’ policy, accessible principal, accessible teachers, uncomfortable for teachers who come from more rigid systems. Pupils and parents alike had reacted positively leading to a dynamic school community. The generous response from parents “affirms that you’ve been doing the right thing” (P1/68), in Starratt’s (1993a) parlance, ‘doing right things’ rather than ‘doing things right’. All of our principals would in one way or another share the purposes and the values outlined by P4 when he described his school as a springboard where “children are enabled to be able to forge ahead in life and to avail of all of life’s opportunities” (P4/42). This focus on children as central to the value system and moral purpose of the school while unsurprising is nevertheless overwhelming in the voices of the principals and it is to this aspect I will turn now. 4.5.4.2 Children Questions on what are the high points in your principalship and what do you like most evoked responses that almost universally included remarks about children. The central place of children is prominent throughout all the conversations, for example: “children are our first responsibility” (P4/90, (P2/82), (P1/102); “happy children” (P3/54), (P11/22, 64, 90), (P10/74). P1 develops the concept of first responsibility to the children; she talks of a “safe and stable and nurturing educational environment” (P1/102), she talks of smiling children in the schoolyard as a success indicator and she talks of the aspiration of those children achieving “their potential in that partnership between you as a school and their parents and their homes. And that you have to get that balance right” (ibid). The
In the way they envision, empower, build communities and exude “a proactive leadership spirit” (Kouzes and Posner, 1996:101) the principals are pursuing a ‘magnificent quest’ (Starratt, 1993a) with the aim of constructing an ideal community or communities of excellence as distinct from its antithesis, mediocrity. This research can confirm and the principals in this study will acknowledge themselves that there are occasions, issues and circumstances where they fall short, sometimes well short. Nevertheless despite some lacunae they perform well on Starratt’s (1993a) five benchmarks or qualities for achieving excellence. Firstly they are “responsive to the human and natural context in which they find themselves” (112), “they hold themselves to a high standard of work” (ibid), “they take pride and satisfaction in their work” (ibid) and allow their work to carry the stamp of their personality. Thirdly they are very strong about relationships and demonstrate a “conviction that others deserve our best” (ibid). Fourthly they care about the quality of public service and public life and work “to create a fairer, more humane community” (113) and finally they support through a significant commitment to real, authentic empowerment pupils, teachers, parents, SNAs and others in their journeys towards excellence. The principals in this study acknowledge like Fink (1994) “change is mandatory, growth is optional”, the inevitability of change, a notion not unfamiliar to Heraclitus 2600 years ago, “nothing endures but change” (Laertius, 300 BCE). These principals while subject to the strictures and constraints of a modern bureaucratic state appear to have created for themselves autonomous space in which they can be imaginative and creative and in that space use a kind of “esemplastic power” referred to by Coleridge [1817] (2007). P1 touches on this point, “things that other people see as important but I don’t see as important, I just don’t do … I do them my way” – no Faustian pact with Mephistopheles or with bureaucracy there - and in the words of Joseph Campbell, scholar of mythology, no “capitulation to the devil” (Cousineau, 1990: 108), just a genuine statement of need and want emanating from within an authentic professional.
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