School Leadership & Collective Teacher Efficacy: The Two Essential Skills For Every Middle Leader!

To lead people, walk beside them. Live with them. Learn from them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best leaders, when their work is done and the task is accomplished, the people will say ‘we have done this ourselves’. – Lao Tzu

with Alistair Kerr

LinkedIn Video Summary HERE

Leadership: A Brief History of Time 

‘Leadership’ is a simple word which belies a very, very, very big universe! We talk about leadership in so many different ways: strategic leadership, self-leadership, innovative leadership, transformational leadership, instructional leadership… the list goes on. No wonder the topic of leadership can be so confusing to so many school leaders. Yet ‘Leadership’, specifically the act of engaging with others to achieve specific organisational outcomes, is a supremely important topic to understand if we are to build High Performance Schools – places where every student and every staff member can flourish!

Leading Others: The Big Three...

When we talk about leadership, we focus in on the act of ‘leading others’ and the words and behaviours we engage with therein. When it comes to leading others, understanding how we develop our leadership depends on the end goal we are trying to achieve. As you can see in the Table below, there are three ‘end goals’ to consider: Respect, Empathy and Enabling. 

Many of the approaches to school leadership development focus on the ‘respect’ and ‘empathy’ factors of leadership which have overlapping skillsets. Whilst these skills boost the quality of communication and relationships (which are very important foundations for running a school), they do not directly address organisational performance. 

To directly improve organisational performance we need to focus on the third aspect of ‘enabling’ – helping leaders develop the delegation skills through distributed leadership and the delivery systems through effective team processes. This would be by far the most important of the three leadership skills for middle leaders to embrace given their critical role in coordinating the efforts of teams to deliver organisational outcomes. When leaders are able to ‘enable’ their teams they build collective efficacy – increasing the shared belief among staff that they can make a positive difference and a corresponding lift in work performance ensues.

School Leadership & Middle Leaders

In High Performance Schools, Middle Leaders are the lynch pin for overall school success. Middle Leaders are the key to executing the wider school strategies through the direct relationships that they build with frontline teaching and non-teaching staff, students and families in the school community. Not only that, Middle Leaders coordinate the efforts of staff on a day-to-day basis while also infusing these actions with the school’s vision and values. They often do this while managing the additional pressure of having to ‘split’ their energy, time and attention between the pressures of leading staff while themselves being led by senior management (becoming the proverbial ‘Meat in the Sandwich’). 

Middle Leadership & Collective Teacher Efficacy

When it comes to school performance, the role of the middle leader is critical in enabling Collective Teacher Efficacy which is the single largest factor influencing student achievement (with an effect size of 1.57). Collective Teacher Efficacy (CTE) is defined as the collective belief of teachers in their ability to positively impact upon student learning. According to Bandura (1986, 1997) there are four sources of information fundamental to the development of CTE: (1) Mastery Experience, (2) Social Persuasion, (3) Vicarious Experience and (4) Affective States. In Schools, CTE is easily measured and managed using the HPT School Pulse System (the most widely used system to help teaching teams improve their CTE in Australia). Given that CTE Pulse results are reported monthly (i.e., point in time data) it’s natural that results fluctuate throughout the year in line with the school calendar (see table below).   

As John Hattie points out, it is ‘teams’ of teachers working together effectively which maximise the impact on student learning. As such, Middle Leaders (who are responsible for line managing teaching teams) have a pivotal role in boosting or hindering the collective efficacy of teaching teams. Whilst this does not lay either the blame or credit for levels of Collective Teacher Efficacy entirely upon middle leaders it is nonetheless important to remember that there is a significant correlation (0.88) between the behaviours of team leaders and the organisational health of teams (Cotton et al., 2003).

As middle leaders can have significant influence on CTE, it becomes vital to understand which aspects of their leadership behaviour have the most impact. So let us now review 4 x middle leader case studies examining a range of leadership factors AND look at the underlying CTE data for each team so we can discover what the most important leadership factors are when it comes to middle leaders building collective teacher efficacy....

Middle Leaders & CTE: The 4 Case Studies

So in the real world, if 'Enabling' higher CTE is the core focus for Middle Leaders, what are the specific aspects of their leadership that matter most? We’ll answer this question by comparing four Middle Leaders on their: (1) Experience, (2) Personality / Deposition, (3) Communication Style, (4) Approach to Distributive Leadership (Delegation) and (5) Use of Team Systems & Processes. We’ll then see how the combination of these factors influences CTE outcomes across a whole year.   

Middle Leader Case Study 1: Ann – HoD of English

Ann is a Veteran HoD with 10+ years of experience in the role and has only worked at the one school her whole career. Above all else, Ann values relationships and always wants the best for the members of her team.  In practice, this influences how Ann communicates as she strives to ensure that team members always have a voice so that they can be aligned and on the same page. Because of this high contact approach, Ann delegates very little and always finds herself in the middle of everything. With a low reliance on systems and processes the team and its performance is highly dependent on Ann’s individual efforts. Overall, the teachers in Ann’s team think that she is a lovely person, but sometimes worry that she’ll burn out and that if she wasn’t around that things would fall apart. 

When looking at the CTE of Ann’s English Faculty across the year it’s clear that the Faculty Average is consistently lower than the School average. Interestingly, despite Ann’s efforts to take on enormous workload herself, the domain of Work/Life & Wellbeing is the lowest for her team. Observation: Could it be that in frantically trying to be personally involved in everything to support her team, that Ann inadvertently modelled and set up the expectation that to fit into the team you need to be a ‘hard worker’?... 

Middle Leader Case Study 2: Lilly – HoD of Math

Lilly is an experienced HoD, but while her background is in Science, she now finds herself leading the Math Faculty. Because of this, Lilly finds that she may not always be a curriculum expert. Lilly’s approach to her team is to be straight down the line. Lilly is as predictable as a clock and when communicating with her team focuses on shared process. In line with this, Lilly always makes sure that roles and responsibilities within the team are crystal clear, which allows for highly effective delegation and sharing of workload within the team. In Lilly’s team, calendars and project plans trigger regular check points that mean that the team never falls behind. Staff in Lilly’s team admit that while she may not be the ‘life of the party’, she’s certainly gained their absolute respect because the team now runs like a well-oiled machine under Lilly’s leadership. 

When looking at the CTE of Lilly’s English Faculty across the year it’s clear that the Faculty Average is consistently higher than the School average. Interestingly, while Lilly is not overly focused on relationships the domains of Performance Feedback and Peer Support are highest for her team. Observation: Could it be that the clarity that Lilly has created within the team has facilitated stronger team relationships?... 

Middle Leader Case Study 3: Oscar – HoD of HPE

Oscar has been around the school for a long time but has only recently taken on a formal leadership title. As a leader both results and relationships are key priorities for Oscar. Because of his action-oriented nature, Oscar is quick to task the team up but doesn’t always follow up or get into the finer details. As a result, Oscar often finds that staff don’t always follow through with tasks that they agreed to in meetings, leaving Oscar to have to jump in and finish other people’s work. While this is frustrating for Oscar,  he isn’t comfortable in ‘calling the behaviour’ because he believes it will get his team off side. Although Oscar is personally popular with his team, a rift is growing inside the team between the high performers and the less diligent due to unequal spread of workload. 

When looking at the CTE of Oscar’s HPE Faculty across the year it’s clear that the Faculty Average is consistently lower than the School average. Interestingly, while Oscar often ‘saves the team’ by getting things over the finish line the domains of Job Satisfaction and Work/Life & Wellbeing are lowest for his faculty. Observation: Could it be that in completing work for others rather than confronting underperformance Oscar is sowing the seeds of dissatisfaction within his team?...  

Middle Leader Case Study 4: Jerome – HoD of Arts

Jerome is the ‘new kid on the block’ having been appointed to his first HoD role only 2 years since graduating. A true creative at heart, ideas and relationships are what excite Jerome. Because of this, when Jerome speaks with his team, he aims to be inclusive and loves linking the team’s day to day work with the school’s bigger mission and values. Jerome openly admits that there is still a lot he has to learn about both teaching and leading in a school. Because of this he often calls on the advice and experience from other HoDs and members of his team to get the job done. With a lot of big personalities in his faculty, Jerome regularly engages the team in personality profiling activities and discussions around what the team looks like at its best and worst to help all team members understand themselves and each other better. While staff admit that Jerome is a bit ‘green around the edges’, they can’t argue that what he’s doing isn’t effective. 

When looking at the CTE of Jerome’s Arts Faculty across the year it’s clear that the Faculty Average is consistently higher than the School average. Interestingly, while Jerome lacks experience as a leader his team rates highly across the board, particularly in the factors of Peer Support and Performance Feedback. Observation: Could it be that in modelling distributive leadership (by openly acknowledging what he doesn’t know and asking for help), as well as using team systems like team profiling that Jerome was able to build a supportive team culture despite his inexperience?... 

Leading From the Middle – What Really Matters?

We’ve seen that all of our Leaders are different, but clearly two of the four HoDs were more successful in maintaining higher levels of CTE across the whole year – Lilly and Jerome. This begs the question of the five factors under examination – which are more important? 

Factor 1. The Impact of Middle Leader Experience on CTE...

“In the mind of the beginner there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.” - Shunryu Suzuki

When looking at experience we see that our two most successful leaders have low experience leading their current teams. While Lilly is an experienced leader, she is new to her faculty and not a subject matter expert. Of the four leaders examined, Jerome is by far the least experienced (both leading and teaching), having only graduated recently. Given this, while experience may be an important factor for leadership and a leader’s own confidence it would appear that it’s not the most important factor for boosting team CTE. 

Factor 2. The Impact of Middle Leader Personality on CTE...

“I'd rather be respected than loved.” - Eli Broad

When looking at the personality / disposition of our four leaders, it’s really a mixed bag. There’s no clear personality factor common to our two most successful leaders. Given this, while personality / disposition may be an important factor for leadership in terms of personal likability it would appear that it’s not the most important factor for boosting team CTE.

Factor 3. The Impact of Middle Leader Communication Style on CTE...

"Beauty (Style) is in the eye of the beholder.” - Anon

When looking at communication style, again there’s no clear commonality that distinguishes our more successful from our less successful leaders. Given this, while being a clear communicator may be an important factor for leadership, individual leaders’ communication styles don’t appear to be the most important factor for boosting team CTE.

Factor 4. The Impact of Middle Leader Delegation on CTE...

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” - Kenneth Blanchard

When looking at the use of effective delegation/ distributive leadership we see a clear difference between Lilly and Jerome’s approach vs Ann and Oscar’s approach. Both Ann and Oscar make low use of distributive leadership, driving much of the activity and performance of the team through their own contributions. In stark contrast both Lilly and Jerome rely heavily on delegation (distributive leadership) to get things done. Given this, it appears that the use of distributive leadership is a crucial enabler of Collective Teacher Efficacy. 

Factor 5. The Impact of Middle Leader Team Systems on CTE...

“If you're too busy to build good systems, then you'll always be too busy." - Brian Logue

When looking at the use of team systems and processes, again we see a clear difference between Lilly and Jerome vs Ann and Oscar’s approach. Both Ann and Oscar make low use of Team Systems and Processes. Meanwhile, the use of robust Systems and Processes is a key team leadership strategy employed by Lilly and Jerome. Given this, it appears that the use of Team Systems and Processes is a further crucial enabler of CTE.

Bringing It Together…

School leadership can be a challenging job and there are several skillsets needed for successful school leadership depending on the focus of your responsibilities at any given time. However, when it comes to ‘leading in the middle’ the skillset for ‘enabling others’ is the number one priority. 

The Two Most Important Skills for Middle Leaders…

While we may feel intuitively that Experience, Personally, and Communication Style are the keys to boosting team performance, our case study tells a different story. The key to boosting CTE (and in turn student achievement) related to two specific leadership skills: (1) Capability to Delegate effectively by using Distributive Leadership Strategies which creates clarity of both role and scope to enable staff to use their own initiative, and (2) Robust Team Systems and Processes, allowing the team to optimise relationships and achieve collective goals.  

The implications of this is significant because as long as you’re willing to share the load and trust your systems, you don’t need to be the one with the most experience (or all of the answers), and you don’t need to fundamentally change who you are in order to be effective. Remember the wisdom of Lao Tzu who said: 'The best leaders, when their work is done and the task is accomplished, the people will say ‘we have done this ourselves’. 

How about you?... Do you use a strong Distributive Leadership approach when leading your team, or do you take everything on your own shoulders?... Do you make use of Robust Team Systems and Processes so that the team can run effectively even when you’re not around, or would the team fall apart without you?... How could you improve your use of Distributive Leadership and Team Systems & Processes to maximise Collective Teacher Efficacy?...

Dr Pete Stebbins PhD

Dr Pete Stebbins, PhD, is a workplace psychologist, executive coach & author of the recently released book: "The Five Disciplines of Extraordinary School Leaders". Pete has many years of research and professional practice behind him working extensively in education and health. Pete is the director of the High Performance Schools Program working with a large number of schools to maximise staff and student outcomes.