Principal as Culture Builder

A Cultural Perspective for Learning in Community

• Defining School Culture

Schein’s Cultural Elements

• Historical and current artifacts (including behavior norms, traditions, and myths)

• Commonly held values and beliefs among internal and external participants in the organization

• Basic assumptions that provide the underlying basis for actions, values, and beliefs by the participants

Understanding A School’s Existing Culture

1. How long has the school existed?2. Why was it built, and who were the first

inhabitants?3. Who had a major influence on the school’s

direction?4. What critical incidents occurred in the past,

and how were they resolved, if at all?

Understanding A School’s Existing Culture cont.

5. What were the preceding principals, teachers, and students like?

6. What does the school’s architecture convey? How is space arranged and used?

7. What subcultures exist inside and outside the school?

8. Who are the recognized (and unrecognized heroes and villains of the school?

Understanding A School’s Existing Culture cont.

9. What do people say (and think) when asked what the school stands for? What would they miss if they left?

10. What events are assigned special importance?

11.How is conflict typically defined? How is it handled?

Understanding A School’s Existing Culture cont.

12. What are the key ceremonies and stories of the school?

13. What do people wish for? Are there patterns to their individual dreams?

Wagner’s three cultural elements that relate specifically to the overall culture of the school

• Professional collaboration

• Affiliative and collegial relationships

• Efficacy or self-determination

Questions to link the understanding of the school’s culture with your role as a leader:

• What do students, staff, and community members say (and think) when asked what the school stands for?

• How do the key people in the school use personal pronouns in describing the school?

Characteristics of a Toxic Culture

1. Focused on negative values 2. Fragmented—meaning is derived from

subculture membership, antistudent sentiments, or life outside work

3. Almost exclusively destructive4. Spiritually fractured

Negative Roles

• Saboteurs• Pessimistic storytellers• Keepers of the nightmare• Negaholics• Prima donnas• Space cadets • Martyrs • deadwood

Outcomes of Strong School Cultures

Principal Leadership in Creating, Maintaining, and Changing Culture Creating School Culture

The first set, primary embedding mechanisms:1. What leaders pay attention to, measure, and

control on a regular basis2. How leaders react to critical incidents and

organizational crisis3. Observed criteria by which leaders allocate

scare resources

The first set, primary embedding mechanisms cont.

4. Deliberate role modeling, teaching, and coaching

5. Observed criteria by which leaders allocate rewards and status 6. Observed criteria by which leaders recruit,

select, promote, retire, and excommunicate organizational members

A second set of mechanisms acts as culture reinforcers

1. Organizational design and structure2. Organizational systems and procedures3. Organizational rites and rituals4. Design of physical space, facades, and

buildings 5. Stories, legends, and myths about people and

events6. Formal statements of organizational

philosophy, values, and creed

Maintaining School Culture

• Internal veterans

• Internal newcomers

• External constituents

Changing School Culture:Seven steps in responding to toxic cultures

1. Confront the negativity head on; give people a chance to vent their venom in a public forum

2. Shield and support positive cultural elements and staff3. Focus energy on the recruitment, selection, and retention of

effective, positive staff4. Rabidly celebrate the positive and the possible5. Consciously and directly focus on eradicating the negative and

rebuilding around positive norms and beliefs 6. Develop new stories of success, renewal, and accomplishment 7. Help those who might succeed and thrive in a new district

make the move to a new school

The Principal Facilitating Others in Understanding and Developing Culture

1. Visionary2. Symbol3. Potter4. Poet5. Actor6. Healer

Five Possibilities that Symbolize what Principals and Assistant Principals can do

1. Symbolize core values in the way offices and classrooms are arranged

2. Model values through the leader’s demeanor and actions3. Use time to communicate what is important, what should

be attended to4. Realize that what is appreciated, recognized, and honored

signals the key values of what is admirable and achievable 5. Recognize that official correspondence is a visible measure

of values and reinforces the importance of that is being disseminated

Four Ways to Shape the Culture

1. They infuse shared values and beliefs into every aspect of the culture

2. They anoint heroes and heroines, anointing and recognizing the best role models in the school

3. They observe rituals as a means of building and maintaining esprit de corps

4. They perpetuate meaningful, value-laden traditions and ceremonies

Three Examples of Ways Teacher Leaders can Work with Principles in Reinforcing Positive

Aspects of Culture: • Celebrate successes in staff meetings and

ceremonies • Tell stories of accomplishment and

collaboration whenever they have the opportunity

• Use clear, shared language created during professional development to foster commitment to staff and student learning