Canada has one of the best education systems in the world. This is especially true when you consider that the majority of students are educated in public schools, the vast diversity within our classrooms and the highly inclusive environment we continually cultivate. Most countries marvel at the results we consistently get year in and year out. We have and continue to be good! But is good really good enough to support an education system where innovation is prioritized, and students are being fully prepared for and ever changing and literally unknown future? Sadly, and not to be disrespectful to all of the hard working and dedicated educators and leaders out there, I do not think so.
We are at a standstill. We have good schools but not great! We have good systems but not great! Unfortunately (and maybe not through our own doing) we have fallen into complacency and decided to tinker rather than blow up. We play it safe instead of being bold and while it is good for some students, our present systems are not great for all. Incidentally, that is what we are called to do, be great for ALL students.
So, who starts this fearless leadership required to jumpstart the innovation really required for today’s students? It would be nice if it began with our governments but, that is rarely their mandate. True innovation always comes with an implementation dip and with most election cycles being a mere four years, the opportunity to go against the grain of the norm (which is what innovation requires) is likely unrealistic. Plus, governments in power speak and do what is most beneficial for their own supporters and regardless of what side of the coin the political party, rocking the boat is not a wise political move. While historically some politicians have been fearless, a ruling party’s most important goal after an election is to get re-elected. My statement is not to be insulting but rather to demonstrate perspective on how governments are usually not the ones to take on the role of fearless leadership.
School boards have some similar challenges since they too, are on a four-year cycle and their funding comes almost exclusively from government. However, even with those constraints I believe that school boards can lean more toward fearless leadership through one of their four modes of governance, namely innovative. Through their governance lens, which is where high functioning boards reside, creating an innovative environment is part of fearless leadership. Painting a preferred future and then allocating the appropriate resources in order to ensure that students are best prepared for this changing world is fearless. It is easy for boards to state that they want strong literacy and numeracy results but that is only minimal at best. Students who demonstrate strong literacy and numeracy results are at the ground floor. Our society requires so much more from our education system to deal with current and future world problems. Boards have an obligation to create an innovative environment where we go far beyond the reading, writing and arithmetic!
While the environment to promote innovation must be established by school boards, it is the senior and school leaders who must actualize fearless leadership.
Fearless leadership is about the courage to take risks, to challenge the status quo and to make decisions that may not be popular but are right! It is about taking a leap of faith. It is about bursting out of a cocoon to really see what the possibilities are out there. So many of the structures we have in schools/systems today are the same as we had since formal education was introduced. Why?
The pandemic shook us out of many of our past practices due to necessity but what if we decided to not return to the comforts of how we have always done it? We need leaders who are confident in their own abilities and possess a forward-thinking vision. Fearless leaders must be resilient because the general public is going to call them out over and over again because change is difficult. Change takes us out of our comfort zone, and this is one of the reasons it is so difficult to enact.
And money, cannot be the reason leaders do not make that jump. There will never be enough money says the fearful leader. But fearless leaders look at the resources available and make decisions necessary to innovate rather than promote and protect the safe! I am not suggesting that government funding is sufficient but maybe we need to allocate our resources differently to innovate!
Leadership success is not attainable for everyone because it is really difficult to achieve. The attributes required by today’s leaders are not in the box of traits most people have in their own toolkit. But now, more than ever before and especially in education, we need authentic and fearless leaders. We need leaders who cross the chasm in a giant leap, confident that the other side will provide greater opportunities for students and lead to achieve an improved global state of affairs. We need thinkers and problem solvers and collaborators and creative geniuses and compassionate souls and all of those competencies that go far beyond literacy and numeracy. And we cannot get there without fearless leaders in our systems and in our schools.
