Effective Leadership in Early Intervention

1. Effective Leadership in Early Intervention Session 2 Vision and Change Camille Catlett, M.A. Investigator Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute University of North Carolina Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

2. What is Vision? Vision has been defined as “the ability to bypass the obvious and see opportunities that evade others – to see new ways of doing things. It enables the effective leader to see new and valuable relationships among many diverse ideas, events, things and people. Vision includes new discoveries as well as the rearrangement of long standing ideas.” (Hegarty & Nelson, 1997, p. 14) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

3. The Importance of Vision Leadership scholars identify vision as an essential element of successful leadership. (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Senge, 1990; Koestenbaum, 1991; Nanus, 1992; Lynch, 1993) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

4. Characteristics of Effective Leaders • Having a vision, planning for the long term, and moving beyond the press of everyday responsibilities. • Reaching out and working with people and organizations beyond familiar colleagues. • Scanning the environment for strategic opportunities to move forward. • Making strategic use of data and expert support. • Developing new approaches to reach the public and policymakers. • Making tough decisions and risking being unpopular. • Hanging tough, being relentless, and continually developing new approaches to highlight the issues. • Knowing how and when to compromise. • Inspiring and supporting new leaders and collaborating with colleagues. (Blank, 1997) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

5. Types of Vision • Organizational Vision • Personal Vision Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

6. Organizational Vision A vision has to have accuracy, and not just appeal and imagination. Articulating a vision for an organization or community has to start with an awful lot of listening, a lot of stimulating debate and conversation, and then more listening – to distill and capture the values. Flower, 1995 Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

7. On Organizational Vision “I recently completed work with an organization that decided to engage all 900 of its employees in creating a vision. The process was messy and ambiguous. It was a process that did not allow anyone to nail down a vision for anybody else. We finally got to a place where a lot of people in the organization understood that even vision is a process. They don't need to have something clearly written down. Having gone through the process of working together, and illuminating what they wanted the vision to be, the vision is in their guts and in their hearts. They don't need it up on a wall.” Meg Wheatley in Flower, 1993 Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

8. Personal Vision • May start as a theme – concern, desire, question, proposition, argument, hope, dream or aspiration • Develops through a process of self-exploration and self-creation • Becomes our ambitious expression of optimism and possibility • Communicates what makes us singular and unequaled, setting us apart from everyone else • Also known as purpose, mission, legacy, dream, goal, calling or personal agenda Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

9. Strategies for Developing a Personal Vision • Read or watch the biography of a visionary leader. • Think about your past. • Who has influenced you? Who have you influenced? • Determine the “something” you want to do. • What’s your dream about your work? • Write about how you’ve made a difference. • What has been your greatest contribution to early intervention? • Write your vision statement. • What is unique about your hopes, dreams and aspirations? • Test your assumptions. • Ask a close friend or colleague for feedback on your vision. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

10. Vision – A Key Difference between Managers and Leaders Management Competencies Leadership Competencies Plans, budgets & designs detail steps Develops a vision & the strategies to achieve it Demonstrates skill in administration Demonstrates skill in sharing a vision Eyes the bottom line Eyes the horizon Plans how and when Asks what? And why? Does things right Does the right things Builds success through maintenance Builds success through collaboration of quality and shared commitment (Adapted from Bennis & Nanus, 1985) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

11. The Vision-Change Connection “The force of a leader’s convictions and scope of vision are often more vital than a position of power or authority. Exceptional leaders identify what they want to achieve first and then plan back to the present. Leaders who continually expand their skill to understand and capitalize on change, rather than fight or deny it, are the ones who will be successful.” (Hegarty & Nelson, 1997, p. 15) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

12. Change . . . • is inevitable • is necessary • is a process • occurs in individuals, organizations and societies • can often be anticipated and planned for • is a highly emotional process • can cause tension and stress • is resisted by many people • can be adjusted to by individuals and groups with support from leaders • entails developmental growth in attitudes and skills, policies and procedures Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

13. Descriptors Frequently Used to Describe Change Negative Positive • Fear Exhilarating • Anxiety Risk-taking • Loss Excitement • Danger Improvements • Panic Energizing Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

14. Quotes about Change It’s estimated that 4% of people are willing to look at new realities, accept the need to change and risk making the changes. The other 96% will do everything they can to keep things from being different. (Hegarty & Nelson, 1997) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

15. Theories of Change The Communication Initiative web site (on the reference list for this session) lists summaries of over 60 different hypotheses about the nature of change. Ranging from A (Activation Theory of Information Exposure) to U (Unintended Consequences), each approach offers insights on how change can be encouraged and facilitated in both individuals and communities. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

16. Capacities Needed by Leaders Who Operate in a Climate of Change These characteristics are independent but mutually reinforcing. Each and every leader can improve his or her leadership by focusing on: • Moral Purpose • Understanding of the Change Process • Relationship Building • Knowledge Creation and Sharing • Coherence Making (Fullan, 2001) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

17. CAPACITY 1: Moral Purpose Moral purpose is about both means and ends -- the means to getting to the end are crucial. Moral purpose cannot just be stated; it must be accompanied by strategies for realizing it, and those strategies are the leadership actions that energize people to pursue a desired goal. Kouzes & Posner (2003) refer to this as “keeping an eye on core values.” (Fullan, 2001) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

18. Characteristics of Moral Purpose • Answers the question: Will this make a difference in the lives of infants, toddlers and families? • The social glue that infuses an organization with passion and purpose • Requires forging interactions across the diverse interests and goals of different groups • Can lead to collective mobilization • Essential to sustain ongoing progress toward achieving goals (Fullan, 2001) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

19. CAPACITY 2: Understanding the Change Process • The goal is not to innovate the most. • The leader with the greatest number of changes is not the winner. • Beware "Christmas Tree” changes that glitter at a distance, because of the many innovations, but end up superficially adorned, lacking depth and coherence. • It is not enough to have the best ideas. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

20. CAPACITY 2: Understanding the Change Process (continued) • Appreciate the implementation dip. • All innovations worth their salt call upon people to question and in some respects change their behavior and their beliefs - even when the innovations are being pursued voluntarily. • Expect dips in performance and confidence when implementing innovations that require new skills, behaviors and beliefs. • Don't panic when things don't go smoothly during the first year of undertaking a major innovation or new direction. • Be empathetic with people immersed in the unnerving and anxiety-ridden work of trying to bring about a new order. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

21. CAPACITY 2: Understanding the Change Process (continued) • Redefine resistance. • Be willing to listen and learn from people who disagree. You’ll learn far more from them than you will from your cheerleaders. • Reculturing is the name of the game. • Reculturing - changing the way we do business – is the key to progress. • Effective reculturing “activates and deepens moral purpose through collaborative work that respects differences and constantly builds and tests knowledge against measurable results.” • Never a checklist, always complexity. • There can never be a recipe or cookbook for change, or even a step-by-step process. (Fullan, 2001)) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

22. CAPACITY 3: Relationship Building “If moral purpose is job one, relationships are job two as you can't get anywhere without them. Effective leaders connect people, and bring them into change. They do that, in part, by making the purpose known. Kouzes & Posner (1998) argue that what separates effective from ineffective leaders is how much they really care about the people they lead.” (Fullan, 2001) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

23. CAPACITY 4: Knowledge Creation and Sharing “Information is for machines. Knowledge is for people. Information becomes knowledge only when it is shared with others and it takes on a “social life.” Focusing on information rather than use is why sending individuals and even teams to external training by itself does not work. Leading in a culture of change does not mean placing changed individuals into unchanged environments. Rather, change leaders work on changing the context, helping create new settings conducive to learning and sharing that learning.” (Fullan, 2001) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

24. CAPACITY 5: Coherence Making • Effective leaders tolerate enough ambiguity to keep the creative juices flowing but ultimately they seek coherence. Three ways to move from ambiguity to coherence are: • by focusing on outcomes • by reflecting on what has been learned through knowledge creation and sharing (e.g., does it work? Does it support our overall purpose?) • by continuing to draw upon relationships (i.e., stimulating, inspiring and motivating each other to contribute and implement best ideas) (Fullan, 2001) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

25. Energy-Enthusiasm-Hopefulness Fullan (2001) says that all effective leaders also possess these personal skills. Energetic-enthusiastic-hopeful leaders “cause” greater moral purpose in themselves, bury themselves in change, naturally build relationships and knowledge, and seek coherence. They are always hopeful – conveying a sense of optimism and an attitude of never giving up in the pursuit of highly valued goals. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

26. Strategies Leaders Use to Help Others Cope with Change • Orchestrate the conflict. • Most people have a natural aversion to conflict, but effective leadership usually involves surfacing and working with conflict rather than squashing it. Astin & Astin (2000) speak of this as “disagreement with respect.” • Create a holding environment. • Effective leaders work to create an environment that supports change, one which allows difficult issues to be addressed or wide value differences to be adjusted without participants feeling their physical or emotional safety is in jeopardy. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

27. More Strategies Leaders Use to Help Others Cope with Change • Control the temperature. • Change generates tension and produces heat. The trick is to keep the heat in a tolerable range – high enough that people pay attention, but not so high that they recoil in distress. • Pace the work. • Maintain momentum by avoiding the trap of trying to do too much too soon. • Show them the future. • Help others to see the positive vision that makes the angst of change worthwhile. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

28. Leadership in Times of Change The next slide shows a chart of the key elements that can support change. The absence of one element, however, can obstruct the change process. As you look at the next slide, you’ll notice that in each horizontal line, an element is missing (indicated by X). You’ll also notice that the final outcome in each line is missing. Write down your prediction for the outcome when a specific element is missing. For example, in the first line, what outcome might you get as a result of not having a vision? Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

29. Elements of Complex Change: Fill in the Missing Outcome(Villa & Thousand, 1995) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

30. The Answers (Villa & Thousand, 1995) Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

31. Change as a Journey One helpful metaphor is to liken change to a journey. Similar features include: • maps and guides - to help you reflect on previous journeys and to chart routes through new territory • travel agents – the human resources whose knowledge can assist with the process • traveling partners - the people involved in and affected by the change • roadside attractions – the encouragement and rewards to productive change • road blocks –obstacles to stress-free change or speed limits that govern how fast or slow you can go Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

32. One View of Leadership & Change “Effective leadership is an essential ingredient of positive change. No society can continue to evolve without it, no family or neighborhood holds together in its absence, and no institution prospers where it is unavailable” (p. iv). Leadership is associated with other expressions of the human spirit - hope, commitment, energy, and passion, and the capacity to lead is rooted in virtually any individual and in every community.” Astin & Astin, 2000 Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

33. Another View of Leadership & Change “We need to find processes by which we can engage everyone in a system in developing its future - creating meaning, creating purpose, creating clarity - about what it is that we are capable of accomplishing together. Family members will have something to say about it and so will the practitioners and administrators – all of the stakeholders. There is a great deal of talent and expertise available both within our organizations and in our communities, that we just need to start using.” Meg Wheatley in Flower, 1993 Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE

34. One Last Thing to View As a reward for working through this content presentation, relax and watch a short video. Find Gone Through Any Changes Lately? in the Session 2 resources and enjoy some final reflections on change. Early Intervention Leadership Academy MSDE/CTE