Abstract
The present paper contends that re-culturing school culture is most essential job nowadays and it can be achieved through transformative school leader. A transformative school leader can play significant roles in establishing corporate culture at school ultimately re- culturing a school in a new style, bringing new strategies and effectiveness in the school organization. Re-culturing a culture at school is a challenging job, yet it is possible to achieve through a transformative school leader. Transformative leader, as name suggests, can cultivate the new culture in a school ultimately challenging the previous culture of the school. This paper attempts to explore how a transformative leader can re-culture a school culture despite many obstacles.
Key words: re-culture; school culture, transformative school leader; corporate culture; organizational culture
Introduction
Culture represents the unspoken
code of communication among members of an organization (Cremer, 1993). Every
members of the organization follow certain rules, regulations, code of conduct
which may be in written or unwritten form, that shapes the culture of that
particular organization. Therefore, organizational culture is a system of
shared meaning which distinguishes the organization from other Organizational
Culture.
Likewise, School culture has been defined as
“the basic assumptions, norms and values, and cultural artifacts that are
shared by school members, which influence their functioning at school”
(Maslowski, 2001). It is a set of visible and invisible rules and regulations
practiced over there. Every individual working at school, consciously or
unconsciously practices certain norms and regulations at school which becomes
the culture of that particular school.
In other words, what an individual, as a
school member, does and does not practice in the school organization, which becomes
the culture of that particular school. It plays a significant role in enhancing
school effectiveness (Heck & Marcoulides 1996). Especially, the school leader can play a key
role in shaping such culture at school. The success and failure of any school,
to a great extent, depends on the culture practiced there.
It
is said that ‘cultural patterns can produce innovation, growth, market
leadership, ethical behavior, and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, an
unhealthy or misaligned culture can impede strategic outcomes, erode business
performance, diminish customer satisfaction’ (Anderson, Anderson, & Lee,
2015). This concept can be applied to school environment too. As school is also
an organization and delivers the services to the people, it must have a
distinguished culture and the success lies in the practiced culture.
Therefore no one can under estimate the roles of culture in a school. It is necessary to re-culture the school with the passage of time to bring out the effectiveness in the school’s affairs. Re-culturing is possible through a high commitment and high performance seems to be distinguishing features of schools with a healthy organizational culture and high staff well-being (Sergiovanni 2004).
The concept of school leadership
Leadership has
been defined in different ways in different stages of history. While defining the term, ‘school leadership’,
it is often used interchangeably with school management and school
administration (Pont, Nusche, & Moorman, 2008). Obviously,
there is a difference between school manager and school leader. Regarding this
difference, an often-quoted phrase is “managers do things right, while
leaders do the right thing” (Bennis and Nanus, 1997 as quoted in Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008).
Therefore,
school leadership goes beyond simply managing the school resources and staffs. ‘While
leadership involves steering organizations by shaping other people’s attitudes, motivations and behaviors, management
is more closely associated with maintenance of current operations’ (Bush and Glover, 2003). In short, school
leaders can transform the school environment through their vision and goals
going beyond existing current operations. They can set up new corporate culture
reenergizing the organization ie. “a set of norms and values that are widely shared
and strongly held throughout the organization" (O'Reilly and Chatman ,1996). It helps to establish a new
culture at school, giving vigor to the staffs and new identity to the school.
Who are
transformational school leaders?
Transformational
leaders have been characterized by four separate components or characteristics
denoted as the 4 Is of transformational leadership (Avolio, Waldman, and
Yammarino ,1991 as quoted in Bass, 1993 ). These four factors include idealized
influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and
individualized consideration. As the
transformational leaders possess these qualities, they can play the roles in
shaping new culture at school. Therefore, transformational leaders have a
unique opportunity to begin the process of change by encouraging faculty to
embrace new levels of teaching and learning through a transformational lens.
The
outcomes of re-culturing are demonstrated through new forms of interaction and
professionalism surrounding activities such as joint problem solving, data
sharing and analysis, shared decision making, and distributed leadership (McLeskey
& Waldron, 2000;Walther Thomas, Korinek,McLaughlin, & Williams, 2000 as
quoted in Waldron & Mcleskey, 2010 ).
Transformational
leaders change their culture by first understanding it and then realizing the
organization's culture with a new vision and a revision of its shared
assumptions, values, and norms (Bass, 1985). Transformational school leaders
can reshape the school with re-culture of their vision and strategies.
In
essence, transforming leadership is a leadership that facilitates the
redefinition of a people’s mission and vision, a renewal of their commitment,
and the restructuring of their systems for goal accomplishment (Roberts, 1985).
Transforming leaders can re-culture the culture of the school through their
visions and strategies. They can challenge the existing culture introducing new
set of corporate culture through motivation of the staffs. They can bring out
the changes through ‘the collective action that transforming leadership
generate s empowers those who participates in the process. There is hope, there
is optimism, there is energy’ (Robert, 1985).
How a
transformational leader can re-culture through corporate culture?
Every school has
a culture. Schools become more effective when they develop an appropriate
strong culture. As culture creates consensus, unity and motivate the staffs to
work efficiently, the transformative leaders can make the strategies accordingly
and can implement in the school. If the uniformed culture is developed, this
new practice of culture definitely has effect on corporate performance
introducing the new corporate culture. As a visionary leader, one has to think
seriously on how employees think about and value their work and priorities. It
is the responsibility of the transformational leaders.
In
essence, transforming leadership is a leadership that facilitates the
redefinition of a people’s mission and vision, a renewal of their commitment,
and the restructuring of their systems for goal accomplishment (Roberts, 1985).
Transforming leaders can re-culture the culture of the school through their
visions and strategies. They can challenge the existing culture introducing new
set of corporate culture through motivation of the staffs. They can bring out
the changes through ‘ the collective action that transforming leadership
generate s empowers those who participates in the process. There is hope, there
is optimism, there is energy’ (Robert, 1985).
Why is it essential re-culturing school through corporate
culture?
It is essential
re-culturing school through corporate culture.
Tomlinson (1999) defines that corporate culture reflects the values and
interpretation of senior managers; the organizational culture, on the other
hand, embraces many subcultures’. It means it is a strong cultural pattern
practiced in the school especially of school leader. It helps the school to get
distinct identity as it creates brand name for the school differentiating one
from another school. It helps to become a school an icon among many other schools. Re-culturing a school with new
culture develops a sense of identity amongst members and it associates them
with the organization. Every staff feels closed to the organization with sense
of ownership as they strongly belong to the school in term of culture they
practiced. Every staffs can have commitment in the shared goals of the school.
This feeling of shared culture develops appropriate standards for employees and
holds them together to achieve the targeted standard of the school. In a nut
shell, re-culturing through corporate culture of transformational leader provides
a control mechanism for shaping the attitude and behavior of staffs ultimately
leading a school to a targeted vision and mission of the school.
Leithwood
& Poplin (1992) believe that transformational school leaders are in more or
less continuous pursuit of three fundamental goals: helping staff members
develop and maintain a collaborative, professional school culture; fostering
teacher development; and helping them solve problems together more effectively.
Definitely, this will help to create new culture fostering a corporate culture
in a school leading towards success.
Likewise,
Cheng (1997) thinks that our time demands ‘our school leaders to have a new set of
leadership beliefs and competence that can transform the old and traditional
constrains, facilitate educational changes , and develop appropriate school
environment for teachers and students to work, learn, and develop effectively’
(p.90). His beliefs also can be interpreted to mean that new corporate culture
in a school is most essential to re-culture the schools to gain the vision in
today’s complex situation which is possible only through transformational
school leadership.
Methods of Re-culture in school culture
Charles Darwin’s famous quotation claims that ‘it is not the strongest
of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive
to change.’ It means every organization has to incorporate with the change to
survive, lest, they will also disappear. If we apply this concept to school,
obviously, the transformative leaders have to struggle to bring the changes in
the school to transform school to better environment cultivating new set of
cultures challenging the old one. A transformative school leader can re-culture
a school’s previous culture ‘through Changing structure; changing technology;
changing the physical setting; changing the peoples’ behavior’ (Robbins, 1998).
Obstacles and Solutions to Re-culturing school
Culture
Obviously, there is always resistance against
changing culture in individual and organizational level. According to Robbins
(1998), people resist changing culture in individual level due to certain factors like habit, security,
economic factors, fear of unknown etc.
whereas people resist in organizational level due to structural inertia, group
inertia, power relations, and threat to resources. As a result, cultivating new
culture in a school is not easy job yet a transformational school leader
manages all these obstacles efficiently and can set up corporate culture at school
level too through his/ her vision.
Furthermore, Robbins (1998) recommends certain
suggestions to manage the resistance to change in the organization through: education
and Communication; participation; facilitation and support; negotiation; manipulation
(giving desired roles); coercion (threat). It is possible to establish new corporate
culture by eliminating the obstacles. Transformative school leader can
re-culture the school by challenging the existing culture for the betterment of
the school.
Conclusion
Transformative
school leaders have the ability to manage schools well, to attract and retain
effective teachers, and to construct caring school cultures in which high achievement
is cultivated for all students. In addition, ‘effective leaders influence
teaching and learning by promoting ambitious goals and fostering conditions
that support teachers and help students succeed’ (Togneri & Anderson 2003).
Transformative leaders are at the core of every successful organization. They
cooperatively generate a vision and establish a climate for everyone within the
school community cultivating a new set of corporal culture challenging the
previous out dated culture.
In
other words, principals need to simultaneously use big-picture thinking and
practical intervention strategies to move their school organizations in positive
directions (Barnett, 2004) creating a new corporate culture.
In
a nut shell, transformative leaders can play the role in re-culturing a school by establishing corporate culture in
the school through shared vision, values and goals of the of the school by
motivating school staff members .
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