18377822 – Stuart McMahon - Contemporary Teacher Leadership

Critical Reflection

Video link: Team 02B 4:30 Monday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ke-pzWBCo

This unit has reformed my perspective on the roles, responsibilities and attributes required
of a change agent within community practice. Educators need to be considered as resources
“bringing their human resources to that work, resources still partially and unevenly developed, but
resources that make the work possible and possible as distinctly human work” (Starratt, 2010). The
refocusing of school leadership places the strengths of the teacher at the forefront of change, this
means not waiting for instruction from higher powers but applying relevant, practical, and
contextual change within schools. Rooney (2015) states that when we change our views on the
teaching and learning cycle, then we will often see change follow promptly. In the following critical
reflection, I will examine the process our team followed to complete our assessment designed to
emulate a school leadership team implementing a project. By drawing upon relevant and current
theories of effective school leadership, I will discuss changes required to improve the overall
processes to improve our proposal and school leadership effectiveness in general.

The primary purpose of this task was to develop our capabilities to effectively function as a
leader within community practice. According to Dempster et al. (2018) “leadership is about people in
everyday settings, whether or not holding positions of power, working together on common goals; in
short, a melding of the three concepts of purpose, context, and human agency” (p.92). Our process
shifted away from the leader-practitioner perspective which consists of leader centralism and
individualism into a more collective, collaborative, and distributed leadership paradigm (Dempster at
el, 2018, p.93). The sharing of ideas in an open and power neutral environment compared to a
hierarchal process this allows leaders to draw upon their unique strengths, whilst developing their
capabilities, autonomy, and professionalism. This is evident in our project as each leader harnesses
their agency, expressed their ideas which created a culture that supported collaboration. These
processes are critical for future leaders to develop and apply in within their school contexts to create
relevant and effective change.

A major challenge our group faced was the logistical issue of completing the entirety of the
process remotely as a result of global events. Before these events, our group was meeting face-to-
face weekly as we recognised to function as a collaborative leadership team its important to have
that face-to-face dynamic. With external challenges for each group, member organising time to
meet became difficult. We overcame this challenge by developing intuitive working relations and

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18377822 – Stuart McMahon - Contemporary Teacher Leadership

shared approaches, this interdependency can be considered evidence of distributed leadership

practices to achieve a common goal (Lee et al, 2012, p 670). Our group consisted of multiple leaders;
each had a set of specific responsibilities that were tailored to individual strengths. This collective
coordinated jigsaw approach shifted the traditional roles of group members ultimately providing us
with the support needed to accomplish this project.

Our proposal was contextual, meaning it was designed specifically to cater to the diverse
nature of the educational context. Our program was strengthened because a key aspect of effective
leadership design according to Dempster et al (2018) is that it's grounded in organisational realities.
Although upon reflection, we recognise that leaders need to be able to read between the lines of
educational policy to determine what actions they need to take (Dempster, et al, 2018). This means
we may have chosen a program that suited the school context, but we were unable to access current
multicultural policies and school programs. This posed a challenge for our group because we were
unable to effectively argue that our program was even necessary to improve Belmore Boys High
School (BBHS).

Undertaking this project revealed what was required of me on an individual professional

level, that to be an effective leader I must go beyond systemic-authority and policy. Lovett et al,
(2014) discuss the importance of personal agency and the limited role teachers take concerning their
leadership learning, that school systems continue to over-shadow individuals taking personal
responsibility (p.127). This led to the discussion on what each of us brings to the group, what are
our cultural assets and strengths that can benefit this project. This new human-centred approach to
leadership we undertook redefines the responsibilities of the teacher, instead of being allocated
roles we used our initiative. We recognised our weaknesses in areas of the project and planned for
our learning, an example is I engaged with research literature for my own developmental needs
(Lovett et al, 2014, p. 129). This approach to development is decisive addressing developmental
needs of the individual instead of a top-down approach that may result in a waste of resources,
effort, time, and funding (Lovett et al, 2014). Redefining our approach strengthened our final
product but of course like profession there is always room for continues improvement.

Our final product is a strong applicable proposal that could benefit the school; however, I
am certain we would find challenges and issues while implementing it. If we revisit the main purpose
of this task to develop our capabilities of a leader and I can confidently say our group emulated a
successful, collaborative, open-minded group of leaders in community practice. We encountered
barriers regarding logistical, technological, time restraints, and agreeing on key ideas. Despite this
the experience as a whole has been beneficial and enlightening. By applying what we have learned

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across this unit we were able to address these challenges and redefine what being a school leader
means to us. It is our responsibility now to take these lessons and utilise them in our future teaching
practice.

References
Dempster, Neil, et al. Strengthening the Connections Between Leadership and Learning:
Challenges to Policy, School and Classroom Practice, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.
ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/detail.action?docID=5311558.
Lee, M., Hallinger, P., & Walker, A. (2012). A Distributed Perspective on Instructional
Leadership in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools. Educational Administration
Quarterly, 48(4), 664–698. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X11436271

Lovett, S., Dempster, N., & Fluckiger, B. (2014). Personal agency in leadership learning using
an Australian heuristic. Professional Development in Education, 41(1), 127-143. doi:
10.1080/19415257.2014.891532

Rooney, P. (2015) Introduction to curriculum and pedagogy. Pedagogies in Practice: Lecture

One. February 28. University of Western Sydney
Starratt, J. (2010) Refocusing School Leadership: Foregrounding Human Development
Throughout the Work of the School, Taylor & Francis Group. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/detail.action?docID=574664.
Created from uwsau on 2020-05-06 20:20:17.