Chapter 15 --  The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership
Eight Rolls of Symbolic Leaders

Culture arises in response to persisting conditions, novel changes, challenging losses, and enduring ambiguous or paradoxical puzzles.

Effective school leaders ask three basic questions:

1. What is the culture of the school now -- its history, values, traditions, assumptions, and ways?
2. What can I do to strengthen aspects of the culture that already fit my idea of an ideal school?
3. What can be done to change or reshape the culture, when I see a need for a new direction?

Reading the Current School Culture

A leader must inquire below the surface of what is happening to formulate a deeper  explanation of what is really going on.

Reading culture takes several forms:

• watching
• sensing
• listening
• interpreting
• using all of one's senses
• employing intuition when necessary

First, the leader must listen to the echoes of school history.

Second, the leader should look at the present.

Shaping a School Culture:  The Roles of School Leaders

It is not only the formal leadership of the principal that sustains and continuously reshapes culture but the leadership of everyone.

School leaders take on eight major symbolic roles:

• Historian:  seeks to understand the social and normative past of the school
• Anthropological sleuth:  analyzes and probes for the current set of norms, values, and beliefs that define the current culture
• Visionary:  works with other leaders and the community to define a deeply value-focused picture of the future for the school; has a constantly evolving vision
• Symbol:  affirms values through dress, behavior, attention, routines
• Potter:  shapes and is shaped by the school's heroes, rituals, traditions, ceremonies, symbols; brings in staff who share core values
• Poet:  uses language to reinforce values and sustains the school's best image of itself
• Actor:  improvises in the school's inevitable dramas, comedies, and tragedies
• Healer:  oversees transitions and change in the life of the school; heals the wounds of conflict and loss

School Leaders as Historians

Effective school leaders probe deeply into time, work, social, and normative events that have given texture in the culture of a school.

One of the best ways of tracking the past is to construct an "organizational timeline" that depicts the flow of events, ideas, and key personages over several decades.

School Leaders as Anthropological Sleuths

Serious students of the culture as well as dogged detectives.

Nothing is ever as it seems and one must look for unexpected interpretations of common human activity.

School Leaders as Visionaries

Through a careful probe of past and present, they need to identify a clear sense of what the school can become, a picture of a positive future.

Developing a shared vision for the school can motivate students, staff, and community alike.

School Leaders as Symbols

Educational philosophy, teaching reputation, demeanor, communication style, and other characteristics are important signals that will be read by members of the culture in a variety of ways.

Leaders are cultural "teachers".  Actions of leaders communicate meaning, value, and focus.

Possible ways that actions send signals as to what leaders value:

1. Symbolize core values in the way offices and classrooms are arranged.
2. Model values through the leader's demeanor and actions.
3. Use time, a key scarce resource, to communicate what is important, what should be attended to.
4. 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 what is being disseminated.

Taken together, all these aspects of a leader's behavior form a public persona that carries symbolic meaning.

School Leaders as Potters

As potters, school leaders shape the culture in a variety of was:

• They infuse shared values and beliefs into every aspect of the culture.
• They celebrate heroes and heroines, anointing and recognizing the best role models in the school.
• They observe rituals as a means of building and maintaining espirt de corps.
• They perpetuate meaningful, value-laden traditions and ceremonies.

School Leaders as Poets

We should not forget the straightforward and subtle ways that leaders communicate with language.

Acronyms can separate insiders from outsiders to the school community and tighten camaraderie.

Stories told by or about leaders help followers know what is expected of them.

By repeating such stories, leaders reinforce values and beliefs and so shape the culture of the school

School Leaders as Actors

Cultures have been characterized as the stage on which important events are acted out.

Much of the drama occurs during routine activities of the school.

Drama provides a heightened opportunity to make a historical transition and reaffirm cultural ties within the school community.

School Leaders as Healers

Leaders serve healers when:

• They mark beginnings and endings.
• They commemorate events and holidays of cultural importance.
• They remember and recognize key transitional events in the occupational lives of staff.
• They deal directly and openly with critical, difficult, challenging events in the lives of staff and students, always aware of the message they are sending.

School leaders as healers recognize the pain of transitions and arrange events that make the transitions a collective experience.

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