Shared Leadership: The Essential Ingredient for Effective PLCs

[00:01] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_02:

I am your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Terry Wilhelm. Terry is an author, consultant, and university adjunct professor in educational leadership who served as a principal, a teacher, a central office leader, and and is the author of Shared Leadership, the Essential Ingredient for Effective PLCs, which we're here to talk about today.

[00:36] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:39] SPEAKER_02:

Terry, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:41] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Justin. Pleasure to be here.

[00:43] SPEAKER_02:

So I love the idea of shared leadership. And I know in our profession, we're supposed to love PLCs, right? We love PLCs and the potential that they have. And I wonder if you could start by helping us identify some of the areas where maybe PLCs are not living up to the hype or the potential or the promise. In your work with schools and school teams, what are some of the places where you see schools as particularly needing help getting their PLCs working well?

[01:12] SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and that's really what brought me to write the book, Justin. In my last probably eight to ten years in public education when I was working for the Area Service Agency, we sponsored an annual PLC conference. And the school teams would come and they'd be so excited at this two-day conference and Then they go back to their school and a few weeks later, they'd be looking at each other and saying, what was that again? Or sometimes they'd try out a few things and then they would say, you know, our staff really is not ready for this. But usually what would happen is that they begin to do some things and the work never really progressed beyond a very superficial level. So I began working with school teams on how to implement new systems.

[01:54]

And what I found was that many principals didn't really understand how to share leadership. And when you're trying to transform your school to become a professional learning community, That is not a change that principals can lead solo.

[02:08] SPEAKER_02:

And I know as leaders, we see ourselves as kind of the vision holders and the accountability providers, but we know there's also a lot more to it. As a school leader, I would see that I had teams with PLCs that were working well, that didn't need a lot of handholding, and I would have other teams that really did tend to veer off course pretty quickly. So in developing shared leadership and recognizing that it's more than simply a mandate from the principal and some accountability to follow through, what does that process look like to develop shared leadership and to make sure that it's not just one person, it's not just one team that's strong, but that leadership is strong and shared and effective and making a difference across the school?

[02:50] SPEAKER_00:

Right. You know, I think there are many well-intentioned principals and they recognize the need for teacher leadership, especially as they're moving to becoming a professional learning community. But one of the biggest things that they miss, and it's really understandable how they miss it, but they miss the fact that unless they have regularly scheduled time that they've carved out to work with their teacher leaders, the teams that those teachers are trying to lead are going to struggle. It's kind of like at the beginning of PLCs, when people first began to understand what that meant, and it meant that you have to have teacher collaborations at your school, And people were trying to hold those collaborations at lunch or after school, and that was ridiculous because it's something that has to have sanctioned time. So now it's become almost a given that a district will carve out time during the contract day for the teacher teams to meet. But what a lot of principals don't realize, and they don't even realize it after coming to the two-day conference, is that they have to have time to work with those teacher leaders.

[03:48]

Because just dividing the teachers into teams and then just saying, all right, go forth and collaborate, it just doesn't happen. So what should be happening during those collaborations are very focused discussions. What the students need to be learning in the upcoming unit that we're planning, how we're going to scaffold, how we're going to plan for every student's success, what assessments we're going to design and how we're going to measure the student learning, what we're going to do when some of the kids don't learn. And then what we're going to do with the kids who already knew this stuff before we even teach it. But instead, what happens if the principal hasn't really intentionally developed the teacher leadership of the team leaders is that the discussions become very general and very superficial. And among the team members, they don't even have accountability among themselves to execute plans that they do agree on.

[04:36]

And so eventually, or quickly, teachers in the team begin to say, you know, this is just a big waste of my time. So what I found was that it's an incremental process to develop the leadership of the teacher leaders. And it starts with some very basic things like everybody knows about norms, but the funny thing is in over 15 years of working with school teams, everybody knows how to develop them and they even make a poster and put them up there, but they don't use them powerfully. And so that's just a really an example of a very beginning step. But with shared leadership, it's very different than delegation. Delegation is really necessary, but delegation is a handoff.

[05:19]

Shared leadership is completely different. It's developmental, and it doesn't have a finish line.

[05:24] SPEAKER_02:

I think that's a really important distinction because we tend to think as schools that are organized into departments, organized into grade-level teams, we think, well, we already have these regular meetings that are scheduled. We already have team leaders or people who kind of are de facto team leaders. So if we simply say, all right, team leaders, here's what you're responsible for making happen, we think that's going to work. And what I hear you saying is that hardly ever works if you don't set aside time for what in the book you call guiding coalition.

[05:53] SPEAKER_00:

Yes, that's what I call, just to distinguish it from leadership teams, because those have been around for a long time, and this is really quite different.

[06:00] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, let's talk about that guiding coalition. So this is a group that is responsible for kind of ensuring that the PLC process occurs the way it's supposed to occur?

[06:08] SPEAKER_00:

Yes, that's a good way to put it.

[06:09] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, tell us more about that.

[06:10] SPEAKER_00:

Well, the questions that I just mentioned, what they refer to as questions of a PLC, the people who speak this language, what do we need to have the students learn? We need to agree on that. How are we going to plan for their success? How are we going to know that they learned it? That's the assessments. What are we going to do if they don't learn it?

[06:27]

And then what about the kids who already know this stuff? Unfortunately, the teacher leaders that are supposed to be leading this discussion, you know, there's nothing in teacher preparation programs that really prepares them to lead teams of colleagues. And so, you know, one possibility is you just divide people into teams and don't appoint leaders or have leaders, but there needs to be somebody facilitating those discussions. Most places, most schools realize that right away. So either leaders are appointed by the principal or they're selected by their colleagues or there's, you know, some process where leaders are selected. But it's really difficult for teacher leaders that don't have any kind of training or preparation for leading colleagues to do that.

[07:07]

And there's a related problem. It's not just the fact that we don't have this in teacher preparation programs. We also don't have anything in admin preparation programs about sharing leadership, and that's, to me, a big missing piece. But in addition to the fact that there isn't any preparation, there are some issues with teacher leadership. In fact, teacher leadership is often frowned upon by fellow teachers, and that's just the result of our traditional school culture that we've had for over 100 years. Roland Barthes, who's at Harvard Principal Center, actually went as far as to say that We have a taboo against one teacher elevating himself or herself above the others.

[07:44]

And here's a direct quote because I just love this one. The teacher who takes a leadership role can be expected to be punished by fellow teachers. That's pretty strong language. So as schools across the country have decided to begin working toward becoming PLCs, and a big part of that is having teacher collaborations, there's a huge problem. And I can't even count the number of times I've heard a teacher say, you know, we tried all that PLC stuff at our school and it didn't work. And when I hear that and do a little bit of questioning, what appears to be the case pretty much 100% of the time is that the principal is trying to lead that change solo.

[08:21]

And the chances of success are just minimal. So the principal really has to carve out time to work with the teacher leaders and then look at what is the appropriate developmental process for my teacher leaders. So there's kind of like what I would call a group agenda. And in the book, there are suggested agendas for what to do in these meetings. But there's also a lot of individual work that the principal needs to do with individual teacher leaders because they all come from different places. Some of them have a lot more confidence than others.

[08:52]

Others have a lot of self-doubt about their own leadership capability, especially in the beginning. And that's why I think it's so important for that carved out time to be held sacred for the teacher leaders and the principal to work together because there needs to be a safe place where they can come when they have all their bruises and stuff that's not working and troubleshoot.

[09:12] SPEAKER_02:

I really appreciate your comments about that kind of stigma about taking on leadership. Often teachers will refer to it as kind of crossing over to the dark side. And I think people understand why people become administrators, moving into a formal leadership role, but it's almost worse to be seen as a leader and yet still be a teacher because you're kind of betraying your own in some people's minds. And I think we've got to get away from that paradigm and we've got to shift just that mindset that leadership is the dark side, is the bad guy. But at the same time, we understand we're asking people to change and we're asking our leaders to help their colleagues change, even if there are some pressures against that, even if there's inertia to keep doing things. If we've had our precious team meetings for 25 years, Perfectly fine without real PLC work, you know, without those four questions, without the differences, the changes in our practice that we actually need to make in response to what we decide in those meetings.

[10:07]

You know, that is a big shift.

[10:09] SPEAKER_00:

It's huge. And I couldn't agree with you more. I think the biggest change that I see in schools where the principals have begun to authentically share leadership is that one principal put it this way. She said, it's not just my voice anymore. So the teachers begin to actually own the improvement initiatives. They begin to own the daily work of making their own classroom practice better and making the practices school-wide better.

[10:37]

And that stepping up, that taking ownership, that is only going to happen with shared leadership. It's not going to happen any other way. It won't happen by mandates. The district can mandate it. States and feds can mandate things. But really, it's only when teachers own it that is going to happen.

[10:54]

And that's only going to happen through teacher leadership. So one article I wrote, it was an article for ASCD. It was called how principals cultivate school leadership. And I love the graphics that they chose for it. It was this kind of a cartoon of this little principal lady and she's kneeling in the dirt and she's got these little plants that she's nurturing. And that really is what it's like because of the, you know, taboos as Barth called it, and just the lacking of a skillset for this kind of leadership.

[11:23]

So, It just is so important in the beginning that the principal nurtures this and really communicates well with the whole school community, with the district office, with everyone involved, so that people can begin to understand what this is going to look like and how it's going to be different from the way that we've done things before.

[11:41] SPEAKER_02:

We'll put a link to your ASCD article in the show notes, and you can find the show notes for this and all of our other Principal Center Radio interviews at principalcenter.com slash radio. And I was thinking, Terry, about getting that acceptance, getting that buy-in from teachers and the critical role that teacher leaders play. And one of the things that I think is often very difficult for people to accept when they're alone in their team meeting, the principal is not there. They're free to do whatever they have decided to do. Nobody's watching them.

[12:11]

is follow protocols. And I find that this is especially tough for people who are very confident in their own abilities, who've been doing this for a while, who know each other well. We look at the protocol on the sheet of paper and we think, I don't need this. This makes it weird. We don't need to be weird with each other. We can just sit here and talk and make decisions.

[12:30]

We don't need the protocol. What's your take on protocols? I know you have a lot in the book.

[12:34] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I have three chapters devoted to three different protocols. And I had it later in the book, Because as you say, it's a real anathema to many teachers, especially teachers who have a lot of confidence in their own ability in the classroom for exactly the reasons that you said. So what I suggest to the principal as the principal is working with teacher leaders, well, first of all, I would say don't take those on too soon because people look at them as weird. And when I'm working with school teams and I get to that point, usually in like very late in year one or sometimes even the second year that I'm working with teams, And we come to protocols and I will just say, you know what, this is going to feel weird. Just let it be weird because there is nothing that is going to honestly turbocharge your discussions like a protocol because it keeps the discussion so focused. There are places that both, especially there's a parking lot for anything that comes up that we need to capture that isn't, you know, right in these steps.

[13:31]

At the end, there's a place where we can look at the protocol and say, you know, we really needed more time on this step because, you know, we, Two minutes wasn't enough or whatever. But I think protocols, when you feel that you have kind of a critical mass of teams that are ready to begin exploring, they are so, so powerful. I just would say don't start with them because they're very different than just kind of open discussion. There's a lot you can do that isn't necessarily protocol-driven to really get people understanding how to work as a team. And there's a lot to that because working as a team is not the way teachers are used to working. When I was an elementary school teacher, we had grade-level meetings.

[14:15]

And it was, well, one superintendent that I know calls it tea and cookies. I mean, it kind of bothers me that he calls it that, but that's kind of what it was because we got together. We enjoyed each other. We liked each other. We shared a lot of stuff. But we weren't talking about those important questions.

[14:31]

And we didn't have any accountability to leave that meeting and go do anything different in our practice. And on the other hand, at the secondary level, middle and high school, they've had department meetings for, you know, time, back to time immemorial. But again, those are not focused on those questions. And those departments typically are too big to do this important kind of work. They need to be course alike teams. And it's not to say department meetings need to go away.

[14:56]

They might eventually, but they might not. And so it's just a whole different focus, a whole different kind of a meeting. And, you know, I do think protocols have a place. I would just say, don't do that first.

[15:11] SPEAKER_02:

That's really interesting. I think that's the first time I've ever heard someone say protocols matter, but don't start with them. So before we pull in the protocols, before we really say, OK, this is the, you know, the specific series of steps we're going to take. This is when you can talk and this is when you can't talk. And this is what you can talk about. And these are the things you can't talk about because they're not on the protocol.

[15:29]

What are some steps that teams and leaders need to take to lay the foundation, to get PLCs, real PLCs, actually going in a way that's effective, in a way that departs enough from meetings as usual, but doesn't get people into that weird zone of, why can't I say the thing that is on my mind that they may not be ready for right off the bat?

[15:54] SPEAKER_00:

Right, sure. The first order of business for a team, once... We've gotten past the dysfunction and, you know, I don't want to be here and I refuse to bring my stuff and all that. And your norms have to be powerful to take care of that.

[16:07]

You have to have your norms not only in place, but you have to use them appropriately. People have to remind each other when they're violating. They have to evaluate norms every time to make sure that they're really in use. Once we get past that basic behavioral stuff, the first order of business is to agree on what are the essential learnings for this grade level or this course. What is it the kids have to come out with? And there's an unfortunate mindset that with Common Core, we don't have to worry about that.

[16:35]

That's given to us. But the reality is anybody who's gotten very far into the transition into Common Core, and it's not being, you know, we know whole states have opted out of it. And it's a U.S. phenomenon. It doesn't apply to our colleagues in Canada and other places.

[16:53]

But For the U.S. schools, even if you are transitioning to Common Core, they haven't narrowed the playing field enough that you can even do it in a year. So the first thing for a team to do is to look for a year-long course or for a grade level if it's elementary, what are the outcomes in this course? And if it's elementary, you know, for mathematics, for language arts, what are the annual outcomes? So we're going to have to make sure the very most, most important ones.

[17:23]

Then, as we look unit by unit, we have to decide what are we going to do if collaborations are every two weeks, let's say. In the next two weeks' units, let's say we're going to do two different units in the next two weeks, what are the essential learnings the kids have to master by the next time we're together? And then how are we going to measure that? And how are we going to make sure that our students that are underprepared, our English learners, our students with disabilities, who have special needs, how are we going to set them up for success so that when we teach this, the most possible kids are going to get it? How are we going to assess to see that they did get it? And then what are we going to do with the ones who didn't?

[18:03]

And then everyone has kids that even before you teach something, they know it already. When I was a teacher, I was at a very affluent school and there were a lot of kids like that. And I didn't do a good job planning for them. I kind of taught to the middle. And that's very common for teachers, especially if they don't work in a professional learning community. We just kind of teach to the middle.

[18:24]

So those kids at the top end learn that they can just coast, and they don't nearly produce what they are capable of. And then we have the ones who struggle at the bottom, and then we're kind of teaching to what you could call the average. And it's a very, very imperfect system. So those critical questions for the team those should be the focus of pretty much all discussions. So the essential learnings, the common assessments, those are really the beginning first steps.

[18:52] SPEAKER_02:

Right. So looking at those questions of what are our power standards, kind of pulling out the big goals for the year from kind of a long list of standards, and looking at, I think, what a lot of people would call RTI Tier 1. You know, what are we going to do to support our students who may not get everything that we want them to get if we just kind of teach to the middle? And then also looking at, you know, what about students who kind of came in knowing this? And that's a question that I'm constantly asking myself as a parent of a kindergartner, you know, thinking about how do we meet the needs of all learners? You know, how do we do that in relation to those standards that are kind of our anchor?

[19:26]

So those you're identifying as kind of some of the starting points, some of the foundation. And you mentioned norms as one of the kind of culture components that people need to have. right off the bat. What are some norms that you think are absolutely essential for teams that often might be missing from the way that a team has been operating?

[19:45] SPEAKER_00:

In the book, I do have a set of sample norms, but I only started offering those when I worked with teams because people just demanded a sample. And so, you know, these are the ones that I suggest to start with, but these aren't necessarily appropriate for every team because there are some teams that are further along than this. So I'm just gonna say that for a team that hasn't worked together before, has new members, or maybe has some dysfunction, this is just maybe a place to start. So the first one is arrive prepared and on time, stay focused, assume positive intentions, disagree agreeably, and then balance advocacy and inquiry. But I think the norms themselves are less important than your process. And the other thing that I really advocate, I just think it's absolutely essential, is that you use what I've started to call the five steps for effective norms.

[20:40]

So you have to develop them. And that's where you agree on whatever the set is going to be.

[20:43] SPEAKER_02:

So it's not just a matter of photocopying them. It's a matter of actually within a team developing them.

[20:48] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is. And I often start with, when I do this in a big group with lots of teams in the room, I'll say, what are some things you hate about meetings? And we just make a list. Now let's develop a norm. Which ones can we cluster? They're kind of related.

[21:01]

Now let's make a norm for this little set here. And that really helps people see that they have a function. It's not just an exercise that we do in a vacuum. The reason that we don't like meetings, there are a number of them. And so let's work on those. So that's the development part.

[21:18]

And then to have them always in front of you when you're working together, either posted on the wall or at the top of the agenda or something where you can refer to them and see them. And then the facilitator, every time they meet, should review them. And it only takes, you know, 30 seconds to read them or 20 seconds. But then it's hard to get even that step in place. But then the two steps that most teams don't want to do because they think it feels weird is to have a reminder. And that's what I call the fourth step.

[21:48]

It's everything from a verbal signal to a nonverbal signal. There was a high school algebra team that I worked with and they had their poster and then they had a little rebus symbol next to each thing. So for arrive on time, they had a picture of a watch. And if somebody came in late, everybody would tap their wrist. It was really funny. And these were high school teachers and they had that for each norm.

[22:11]

They had, you know, five or six. I also was working with a school that was in state sanctions in California and And I went to visit one of the English teams. I think it might've been the sophomore English team. And I noticed that they had a new norm that they had added. And I, you know, I was really familiar with these teams because I worked with that school for two years. So they had added a norm and it was in a different color marker.

[22:33]

They had just gotten a new team member and he was notorious for just being negative, a negaholic really. So their norm they had added said no complaining without a suggestion. And so, you know, the, They had made norms that fit them. But honestly, unless you have a way to remind each other that somebody is violating a norm, this algebra team, a side conversation started, which is a very common problem in every meeting that we ever sit in. Side conversation. They had, I can't remember if it was a timeout.

[23:04]

It might have been a timeout signal, like from basketball, the T signal or the little timeout signal. There's another team I worked with. This was an elementary team. I mentioned them in the book. And I just love this one because it was so funny. Their school mascot was the bullfrogs.

[23:21]

And so if somebody did anything that was a violation of a norm, people would just start going, ribbit, ribbit.

[23:27] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I love that.

[23:28] SPEAKER_00:

And again, people think that's weird, but unless you have a way to remind people, it doesn't have to be cute or funny, but it has to be a reminder or else little by little, those are just going to erode. And then the fifth step is, is that every time at the end of every meeting, you take one or two minutes and you evaluate how we did. And it can just be the facilitator can just say, okay, everybody give me a fist to five on how we did on our norms. And let's say everybody's just flashing a flag because they want to get out of there. A good facilitator will say, you know, I really don't agree. I think on norm number two, you know, we had a couple of people that really weren't focused.

[24:05]

We had phones out, people were texting. what are we going to do about that? And then just have a little discussion and then people have to commit to next time they're not going to do that. And if you don't do those things, it's uncomfortable, especially in the beginning, but it heads off so many problems. And if you don't bother to do these five steps with your norms, then you're going to need way bigger interventions to solve the problems. It's just like a teacher at the beginning of the year that doesn't set classroom management in place with, having the kids agree on that social contract or, you know, however you do it, you have to set this groundwork in place or you're just going to be chasing after it forever.

[24:44]

And if you just invest the time and let it be, let it be weird, let it be different. But if you do these things that are different, it's going to have a huge payoff.

[24:55] SPEAKER_02:

So the book is Shared Leadership, the Essential Ingredient for Effective PLCs. Terry, if people want to find out more about your work and get in touch with you online, where's the best place for them to go?

[25:07] SPEAKER_00:

Well, there are a couple places. I have a website. It is educators2000.com. And my cell phone number is also on the website. My email is educators2000 at earthlink.net.

[25:21]

And you can also find me on LinkedIn. And I have a Twitter account. I don't know if that many people are on Twitter yet, but it's at symbol Terry Wilhelm too. And then recently I wrote a blog for Corwin Connect, the publisher's blog. And so if you just Google Corwin Connect and then type shared leadership into the search box, my blog will come up and any comments I get are forwarded to me.

[25:42] SPEAKER_02:

So we'll get all of that into the show notes. Terry, thanks again for joining me on Principal Center Radio. This has been a blast.

[25:47] SPEAKER_01:

Thanks a lot, Justin. And now Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership.

[25:54] SPEAKER_02:

So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Terry Wilhelm? One thing that really stood out to me and I hope you didn't miss it, but if you did, here it is, is this how to confront each other in meetings. I think there's this unstated norm in professions, in our profession, in other professions that you just don't confront other professionals. so no matter what norms you've set people walk into meetings with the implicit norm the unstated norm that you just don't call other people out no matter what they do and that can really undermine the effectiveness of our meetings whether they're plc's or any other type of meetings so the genius in the examples terry gave of how to do this effectively whether it's ribbiting or all looking at your watch or looking at the ceiling when somebody is behaving in a way that violates your norms the key is that everybody does it subtly.

[26:47]

Everybody can look at their watch and no one person has to take responsibility for confronting the person who's violating the norms. And therefore, no one has to violate the unspoken norm of avoiding confrontation. So if everybody can have a signal that they can just kind of subtly engage in and the person who's violating norms can kind of get the message without singling any person out as their accuser, that is incredibly powerful for keeping meetings on track. So if you run with that gem, I think you'll be in a tremendously better place. And if you check out Terry's book on making PLCs more successful, Shared Leadership, the Essential Ingredient for Effective PLCs, you will have really incredible tools, really incredible protocols, and a process for developing shared leadership that's so essential for making your PLCs work.

[27:38] Announcer:

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