Leaders of Learning who are charged with school improvement must address the climate and culture of the school. The culture of an organization—the background assumptions and beliefs that go unchallenged and universally accepted within the system—is critical to its performance.
Consider the culture of an organization to be the low spot on the floor—when you pour the water onto it, it is where the puddles form. While the water can be pushed out of its puddles, when the external force is no longer applied, the water will re-puddle exactly as before. This is why the context of the system is so essential to any effective analysis. To have an order-of-magnitude lasting change to an organization, you must not push the puddles around—you must change the shape of the floor.
Traditional managers are puddle-pushers. They can create "accountability" measures and put the squeeze on people to step up performance through monitoring. And for a while, they can be effective. But over the long haul, unless there is a shift in the culture, as soon as they stop looking, the system will shift back exactly as it was.
A Leader of Learning must help the organization to learn and develop. They create an environment for cultural shift through honest, open, non-judgmental observation and analysis. People want to be successful and if they are stuck in a rut, even of their own making, they will (eventually) respond positively to honesty.
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