Decision Making For School Leaders: Who ‘Holds The Initiative’?

The School Leadership Insights Series of articles looks at some of the deeper self-leadership challenges that may impact upon school leaders – a profession which is both profoundly meaningful and rewarding, as well as having incredibly high rates of burnout and psychological distress. In this article we examine Decision Making and how School Leaders either 'Hold The Initiative’ or 'LoseThe Initiative' and the major consequences this has on school performance .

Decision Making For School Leaders: Who ‘Holds The Initiative’?

An unspoken rule of being an effective school leader is to always ‘hold the initiative’ – to set the agenda for staff and maintain the strategic momentum – to keep staff energised and focused on achieving their specific goals for student success and in turn deliver on schools strategic plan.

When school leaders ‘lose the initiative’ they no longer control the agenda for staff, nor can they maintain the strategic momentum of their school. If this situation isn’t quickly rectified, the ensuing power vacuum and sense of inertia is quickly replaced by internal politics, competing agendas, and interpersonal conflicts.

In the blockbuster action movie 'Black Hawk Down' there is a famous scene where General Garrison states ‘we just lost the initiative’ as a series of catastrophic events completely derail their well-planned military mission. The subsequent events were disastrous – dominated by external chaos and mayhem as they could no longer control the agenda nor maintain the momentum of their mission. 

There are two types of events that cause school leaders to ‘lose the initiative’: (1) unforeseen crises beyond their control, and (2) ineffective decision making processes. Whilst ‘unforeseen crises’ are by definition unable to be prevented, ‘ineffective decision making processes’ can easily be prevented with a little extra know how. In this article we’ll take a quick tour through the tips, traps and pitfalls for school leaders to be aware of – ensuring they never inadvertently ‘lose the initiative’ through ineffective decision making processes.

Decision Making: Delegation Before Democracy

In organisations such as schools there are ‘legally responsible officers’ who are ultimately held responsible for all the decisions that are made within the organisation. There are also ‘delegation frameworks’ set down around who can authorise certain types of decisions (such as expenditure amounts, right to suspend or exclude, right to hire or fire etc.). Finally, there are ‘role descriptions’ and ‘job classifications’ that describe in detail the specific duties and level of responsibility and remuneration for every staff member. Inside these role descriptions there are usually parameters for decisions of certain types which are delegated down to the specific roles.

In practice these delegation frameworks and role descriptions mean that there are very few circumstances in the day to day operations of a school where people actually need to ‘vote’ or ‘agree’ on a matter in order for a decision to be made. (Matters requiring ‘voting’ are usually pre-determined in industrial agreements.) Yet despite this, one of the biggest mistakes leaders make when difficult or contentious decisions need to be made is to ‘lose the initiative’ by ignoring the already established protocols for decisions and instead opt for some sort of vote with either a majority rule or repeated inquiry until a unified decision is endorsed.

This is an understandable attempt by the leaders to lessen the frustrations of staff but it is unreasonable and counter productive from both legal/ industrial and organisational culture perspectives as (a) the officer responsible is now held unreasonably accountable for a decision they did not make, and (b) staff have been misinformed about the true decision making protocols within the organisation and begin to operate with the expectation they have decision powers in their school which in reality they do not have. This is perhaps one of the worst mistakes leaders can make because they ‘lose the initiative’ in the immediate circumstance as well as derail the future decision-making processes of their school much to the detriment of all involved over the long term.

So what do leaders having to make difficult or contentious decisions do instead?

It’s actually pretty straightforward (albeit unpleasant if staff have unrealistic views of their own roles and delegations). Where we have to ‘undo’ the problem above, the first step is to share with staff the forthcoming decisions and re-educate them about the legal and HR frameworks that set-down delegations for decisions. This first step is not required where such historical bad-habits do not exist. The second step is to enable staff to provide any feedback and suggestions within a specified timeframe to the person who is the ‘decision maker’ and do this transparently (i.e., make sure it is documented and shared in a timely manner – where all staff are also shown the process of sharing feedback that has happened). Then, in the third step, the ‘decision maker’ makes their decision (and where needed provides a statement of reasons) and the decision is published and shared with all staff. In this sequence the leader always ‘holds the initiative’ aligning all staff around the true nature of the agenda for decisions and managing the timeframes to maintain strategic momentum.

School Leaders who run their decision making via democracy instead of via delegation is the backstory to many of the more severe organisational problems I have seen in my career. The origin of such problems can be traced back to (1) a lack of ‘general’  industrial awareness of roles, responsibilities and delegations by the leader and/or by staff; (2) a lack of ‘specific’ industrial awareness by the leader and/ or staff within the current organisational context where no-one has reviewed their own role descriptions for years and simply operate on the assumption that what they do is still consistent with their original employment conditions; and (3) a conflict averse leader who has a ‘low frustration tolerance’ for tolerating the reactions and frustrations of staff and/or limitations in their ‘professional skills’ in adhering to the established rules and processes for best practice decision making. The good news is all 3 of the above problems are able to be addressed through leadership development and organisational support interventions!

REFLECTION QUESTION: As a school leader, are you aware of who the 'legally responsible officers' are, what the underlying 'delegation frameworks' stipulate regarding specific types of decisions, and how/ who you can delegate decisions to based on 'role descriptions' and 'job classifications'?

RELATED ISSUE I: Meeting Schedules & Diary Management During Stressful Times

A related issue, and indeed another common mistake leaders can make regarding ‘holding the initiative’ (or losing it), is when, during very busy times,  they generously offer to scale back 1:1 meetings and other diary appointments with their staff to free up extra time for staff to get on top of their own workloads. The strategy itself is sound, but how it is implemented either enables the leader to ‘hold the initiative’ or ‘lose the initiative’.

If the leader implements this strategy by keeping all the appointments scheduled in the diary and asking staff to simply request the opportunity to skip them ahead of time (which they can then approve), then the leader remains available and ready to support staff as per usual – thus retaining the initiative whilst also being able to grant flexibility when needed.

Alternatively, if the leader cancels all the scheduled appointments and simply asks staff to request a meeting when they need it – they ‘lose the initiative’ as they have placed this decision in the hands of their staff and can no longer prove their ongoing availability (should it be later construed they were unavailable and unsupportive)  nor can they control the agenda and frequency of 1:1 meeting schedules according to their own leadership agenda and the operational needs of the wider school.

REFLECTION QUESTION: As a school leader, do you set and maintain a regular cycle of 1:1 meetings with you direct reports, and do you offer them the chance to request to skip such meetings (subject to your approval) when they are experiencing work overload?

RELATED ISSUE II: Consultation: Forced Choice vs Carte Blanche

Another area of decision making and holding or losing the initiative is around consultation processes. As stated earlier in the article, matters requiring genuine consultation are often pre-determined in various industrial agreements. Other matters requiring consultation are usually exceedingly obvious as they are clear exceptions to all other matters covered under the well understood delegation frameworks and role descriptions. So when those genuine issues requiring consultation emerge, the method of consultation the leader chooses will either enable them to ‘hold the initiative’ or ‘lose the initiative’.

Providing Real World Authenticity – Forced Choice: To hold the initiative in consultation, leaders initially need to work with a stakeholder sub group to clarify the nature of the issue for consultation and identify the real world local context of the issue, any relevant policy parameters, constraining factors, resource limitations and processes for making the final decision. This information is embedded into the ‘Focus Question for Consultation’ that can then be shared with staff for their input as per one of the many widely known effective consultation protocols. This precursor step is the most important as it enables the representative group to align around the issue and its operational context and also narrows down the likely options available for staff to consider. Consultation should not proceed any further until this step is achieved. When this step is done well it creates ‘forced choice’ – which is a positive psychological process for staff where they are empowered to genuinely input into matters where they can influence as well as have realistic expectations about the outcomes. In this scenario the leader is able to ‘hold the initiative’ whilst ensuring genuine consultation occurs without any disruption to the agenda and strategic momentum of the organisation.

The False Pretence of Unlimited Power & Choice – Carte Blanche: In this situation leaders ‘lose the initiative’ by raising up issues for consultation directly with staff without first developing a ‘Focus Question for Consultation’ with the stakeholder sub group. This ‘unfocused’ issue for consultation is then simply tabled to staff who are invited to share all ideas and suggestions. The feedback, for which much of it is unrealistic and/or impractical (as staff were never told of the real world constraints in the first place) is then either discarded and staff feel like the whole process was tokenistic OR incorporated into the decision which in turn makes it unworkable for the leaders (causing considerable frustration and angst and leading to dysfunctional ways of working over the longer term). In such cases, leaders ‘lose the initiative’ and either quickly or slowly lose control of the agenda and strategic momentum of the organisation.

REFLECTION QUESTION: As a school leader, do you have a representative stakeholder group or consultative committee you can meet with to develop appropriate "Focus Questions' for staff consultation which incorporate the real world constraints and realistic solutions for staff to consider?

RELATED ISSUE III: Co-construction: Managing Asymmetrical Risk vs Assumption of Ownership

The issue of co-construction also follows the same line of thinking.  To ‘hold the initiative’ leaders need to first identify the problem to be solved or process to be developed using the same method of ‘Focus Question’ with a smaller group of stakeholders. When this is done it should identify any areas of asymmetrical risk (i.e., an issue where, should staff be asked to do something, they can genuinely ignore it without any risk or consequence – the risk falling back on the leaders only). Once the specific issue has been well defined as per above, the leader will then be able to run a collaborative co-construction process which will enable staff to have deeper input into the issue and give them ‘skin in the game’ – increasing their self-responsibility for the outcomes. Thus, the leaders ‘hold the initiative’ in this example of co-construction by decreasing their own exposure to issues outside their own control by increasing staff ownership over areas within that are mainly within the staffs’ control.

Unfortunately a lot of co-construction strategies are instigated not to manage identified asymmetrical risks, but rather as a default change management response whereby leaders assuming people are more invested (aka ‘the assumption of ownership’) if they have had significant input. The intuitively seductive idea that ‘because they built it, they will like it and use it’ does not always prove correct in the real world. Take the example of paintings – many people paint pictures themselves but may not necessarily like their own paintings more than a Monet, Salvador Dali, Picasso, Da Vinci etc. nor adorn their own house with their artwork. Or what about cooking? Many people cook but don’t necessarily prefer to eat their own cooking over dining on food cooked by a Michelin star chef. And even when some staff do co-construct a solution that suits them – there is no guarantee that other staff will embrace this as their preferred option too. In these examples, co-construction does not guarantee ‘buy-in’ (nor the generation of an optimal solution) and leaders end up ‘losing the initiative’ – no longer controlling the agenda nor maintaining the strategic momentum of their organisation.

As co-construction is a ‘hot topic’ in educational leadership, let me be very clear in stating that co-construction can be a very positive strategy where (i) there is no suitable best practice solution already available AND (ii) leaders cannot have line of sight on implementation and compliance (with these circumstances are referred to as ‘asymmetrical risks’). In all other cases the results co-construction will typically vary from neutral to negative and accordingly school leaders will ‘lose the initiative’.

REFLECTION QUESTION: As a school leader, do you use co-construction strategies in order to resolve issues of 'asymmetrical risk' or do you use co-construction strategies as a general change management approach based on the 'assumption of ownership'?

Bringing It All Together

To ‘make a decision’, according to the definition of the Latin root words, is to ‘cut off’ other options and possibilities. In complex organisations like schools there are a multitude of decisions that must be made on a continual basis – any one of which could either focus or derail the organisation from its agenda and strategic momentum.  Using established roles, responsibilities and delegations as the main enabler for effective decision making avoids any unnecessary majority votes for decisions – the results of which may not reflect best practice nor achieve optimal outcomes. Thus, as we have discussed in this article, understanding ‘who’ makes the decisions and ‘how’ these decisions are made is the key to success for leaders to ‘hold the initiative’ which is an essential part of building schools that enable all staff and students to flourish!

Venturus Est Optimus!

Dr Pete Stebbins PhD