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Date: 12 Mar 2010
Address: http://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/index/leadershiplibrary/leadingschools/working-in-partnership/ecm/ecm-models-leadership/ecm-managing-change

Managing change

Current models of leadership and governance are evolving to meet the challenges of developing extended services, involving local communities and working in a multi-agency setting. Taking a distributed leadership approach, where team members take on new roles and responsibilities, is key to successfully working in this more complex environment.

Why we need new approaches to leadership

Multi-agency working brings added complexity to your life as a school leader. The lack of a prescribed model for extended services requires schools to effectively create their own version of what extended provision means, based on their own circumstances. This presents a major challenge for you to work in ways that are markedly different from the old methods.

These changed circumstances call for considerable flexibility, as you must quickly develop an understanding of a range of areas that are likely to be unfamiliar to you.

These include:

  • understanding the professional cultures of partner agencies
  • being aware of the issues involved in working with community groups, parents and families
  • knowing the legal issues involved in the provision of extended services
  • being able to identify the wide variety of funding sources and models

Developing a leadership model

The process of change management should be a key focus of leadership in a multi-agency setting. Several change management models exist. Among the most popular of these is work undertaken by Kotter, who identifies eight steps to organisational transformation. These are:

  1. establishing a sense of urgency
  2. forming a powerful guiding coalition
  3. creating a vision
  4. communicating the vision
  5. empowering others to act on the vision
  6. planning for and creating short-term wins
  7. consolidating improvements and producing more change
  8. institutionalising new approaches

The first three of these are concerned with creating the climate for change to occur. They include increasing the urgency for change, building the right team, and establishing the vision itself. Steps four to six focus on encouraging everyone to embrace the change process. These comprise achieving broad commitment to the vision, believing that people are empowered to act, and securing short-term wins. The final phase signals the importance of ensuring that change becomes institutionalised, while retaining the prospect of further transformational action.

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The mix of approaches required

Multi-agency working puts new demands on you as a school leader, requiring a blend of different approaches. These include:

  • Being aware of when your active involvement provides the necessary status to encourage a successful collaboration. This should be weighed against knowing when to take a distributed approach to responsibilities.
  • Rapidly moving from a position where the initial momentum comes from you, to one of a collective moral endeavour. This will help to promote the longer-term viability of the work.
  • Taking an entrepreneurial approach when necessary, including exploring new funding sources and being willing to take calculated risks.
  • Transforming staff attitudes about the role of the school and the organisations with whom the school is now working.
  • Mobilising others towards the vision through good communication and a willingness to build relationships.
  • Appreciating different cultures and perspectives.

The scale of ambition set out in the Every Child Matters agenda is such that no single organisation or individual leader is able to succeed alone.

Building commitment to this partnership activity and providing sufficient leadership capacity to support its delivery are essential if the full potential of extended schools is to be realised.

For further information see:

The National College's work on new models of leadership

More information on new models of leadership is available within the models of leadership resources area of this website. It includes case studies, practical tools to help you develop, share and implement change and signposts to further information, research and opportunities to discuss and engage with others.

For further information see:

Related publications and resources