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Chapter 17

Developing Leaders, Building Networks, Changing Schools Through System Leadership Wilfried Schley and Michael Schratz

Policy Background After the long history of the Austrian Hungarian Monarchy (Empress Maria Theresia introduced compulsory schooling as early as 1774), Austria has only had a short history of democratic policy-making in the so-called Second Republic after World War II. The country has developed into a federal state of provinces with distinct identities, and at the same time a very strong culture of centralized thinking. Depending on one’s perspective, it could in this sense be called the most centralized federal state or the most federal centralized state. This constellation of policy culture leads to a situation which makes it difficult to put central policies into practice without significant “interference” by the federal parts of the system. This situation was particularly exacerbated in 1962, when a parliamentary decision was made to handle school laws like constitutional laws, requiring a two-third majority for laws to pass. This measure prevents sudden changes by minority governments while also safeguarding the interests of the political parties and the provinces. As a consequence, the present system is highly bureaucratic, strongly regulated in details, hierarchically organized and little output-oriented. There are too many actors, numerous parallel structures, and too little congruence in task orientation and assumptions of responsibility. The system is characterized by a strong influence of social partnership structures, partisan politics, the (teacher) union and the teacher representatives, whereas parents, students, research(ers), and other (less formally organized) actors have relatively little voice (cf. Schmid et al. 2007).

W. Schley University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] M. Schratz (*) University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria e-mail: [email protected] T. Townsend and J. MacBeath (eds.), International Handbook of Leadership for Learning, Springer International Handbooks of Education 25, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1350-5_17, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

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This policy context makes it very difficult to introduce coherent approaches to developing the school system. The implications for school governance and leadership reform initiatives are that eclectic government interventions cause an overload problem by piling disconnected policies one upon one another, leading to a sense of confusion and uncertainty, not only among the actors in schools, but also at different levels within the school system (regional, district, local levels). This in turn leads to de-energizing effects of fragmentation, creates leadership dilemmas, and pulls school managers in different directions between sollen (duty) and wollen (desire) (cf. Schratz 2003, 409–410). Although there has been a shift toward more school-based innovation through a slow movement toward more decentralization and deregulation (cf. Schratz and Hartmann 2009), local school governance and leadership are characterized by a flat hierarchical structure with one head and varying numbers of teachers. Due to a strong focus on one person, leadership is not shared by many people. Moreover, school heads are confronted with restricted autonomy (finance, curriculum, personnel), making it difficult for them to empower their faculty for collective action. After several policy interventions for school reform (cf. Zukunftskommission 2003; ExpertInnenkommission 2008) we seem to be experiencing what the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann asked, from the perspective of systems theory, namely “whether the education system is able to generate new reflective ideas out of its own resources or whether it must depend on the irritations and structural couplings within its social environment – not least in order to be able to experience itself as difference” (Luhmann 2002, 196; translation ours). In Austria, such an irritation was caused by international comparative studies in general and PISA in particular, which have more or less shown that the present education system does not achieve what it is supposed to. For Salcher (2008, 195) the PISA debate has got the right ball, but it is rolling in the wrong direction: The official reactions to the poor PISA test results 2003 in Austria and Germany was reminiscent of a highly talented student who succeeded in muddling through for years but whose poor achievement was suddenly exposed after an important exam. They reached from blaming and shaming, wild outrage, deep contrition to the promise to start to study harder and do better the next time. The responsible politicians took on the role of enraged parents who angrily approached the examination board to file complaints ranging from the completely unsuitable exam tasks their child had to solve to mistakes made in the corrections.

If we look at school reform internationally, we find little evidence that the direction of change is well balanced. Again and again researchers warn about findings which show that conventional school reform does not reach the classroom door (e.g., Schrag 1988; Levin 2008; Marzano 2004; Payne 2008). The main reason for the missing sustainability of reform initiatives seems to lie in the dysfunction of a political culture which develops reform models and tries to implement them by means of prescriptive strategies rather than by capacity building. Their failure is often attributed to the fact that they follow a traditional managerial or leadership model which builds on command and control (cf. Harris (2010).

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Theory Background The Grammar of the Social Field To come up with new approaches to system-wide change, the authors were commissioned by the Austrian Ministry of Education to work on new reform initiatives to counteract the flaws of traditional implementation strategies in school reform. We adopted Scharmer’s model of “Presencing” (Scharmer 2007) as a field theory while developing our approach. His “Grammar of the Field” (Fig. 17.1) builds on four critical fields referring to thinking (micro), languaging (meso), institutionalizing (macro), and global governing (mundo), which can reach four layers of depth of experience with “Presencing” at the bottom of a U-shaped process (Theory U), which for him is where the future emerges. Moving from Field 1 to Field 2 requires opening up to the data of the exterior world and suspending ingrained and habitual (and often dysfunctional) patterns of action and thought (open mind). Moving from Field 2 to Field 3 entails taking a deep dive into relevant contexts and redirecting one’s attention such that perception begins to “happen from the field” (open heart). Moving from Field 3 to Field 4 requires letting go of old identities and intentions and letting come new identities and intentions that are more directly connected with one’s deepest sources of individual and collective action and energy (open will). (Scharmer 2007, 241–242)

FieldStructure Of Attention

Microsphere Individual Attention

Mesosphere Conversion Languaging

Macrosphere Institutional Structure

Downloading

Downloading

Centralized

Mundosphere Governance Mechanism Hierarchy

I-in-me OPENING and SUSPENSION

Seeing

Debate

Decentralized

Market

I-in-it DEEP DIVE and REDIRECTION

I-in-you

Sensing

Dialogue

Networked

Dialogue

LETTING GO and LETTING COME

I-in-now

Presencing

Presencing

Fig. 17.1 Layers of the social field (Scharmer 2007, 241)

Innovation Ecosystem

Collective Presence

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For Scharmer, the greater a system’s hyper-complexity, the more critical is the capacity to operate from the deeper fields of social emergence. Educational systems and institutions “face three types of complexities: dynamic complexity (defined by cause and effect being distant in space and time), social complexity (defined by conflicting interests, cultures, and world-views among diverse stakeholders), and emerging complexity (defined by disruptive patterns of innovation and change in situations in which the future cannot be predicted and is addressed by the patterns of the past” (Scharmer 2007, 242–243). Taking these complexities into consideration, we were looking for a system approach which would allow different stakeholders to see and act from the emerging whole and link it with leadership as a leveraging factor, something that has been missing in the Austrian school culture, namely “the capacity to collectively sense, shape, and create our future” (Scharmer 2007, 352).

Growth as an Antagonism and Synthesis of Regression and Progression Schmitz (1990) founded the “New Phenomenology” as a complex and differentiated philosophical concept, describing the dynamics and principles of personal, interpersonal, and cultural development of people in their different situations and environments. His studies focus on a nonreductionist approach to research and analyze the personal situation as an ongoing process of past and future, regression and progression, narrowing and widening perspectives. This is expressed in a figure of a sinus-curve of irritation, confrontation, and apparent chaos, moving toward emancipation in which the whole is seen as embodying the actual situation and its connection with an emerging future. In this respect, Schmitz’ phenomenological approach with its emphasis on the felt-body and embodiment is closely connected with Scharmer’s Theory U and his concept of Presencing. In understanding the complexity and dynamics of learning and growth, the crucial role of subjects has to be regarded as a prerequisite for the concept of personalized learning. Professional understanding of personalization means being aware of the complexity and chaotic variety of issues, elements, aspects, dimensions, factors, as well as of problems, programs, and intentions which comprise the whole situation. Be it a diagnostic process of assessment, an inclusion process within a classroom, school, and community, or a mutual understanding of challenges, achieve ment, and qualities, seeing a situation from the whole means being confronted with this chaotic variety. The principle of “observe, observe, observe” (Scharmer), leads to an open mind, in which the dynamic can be seen as connected to the phenomenon of regression. The more one observes, the more one feels overwhelmed by impressions, thoughts, and feelings. A solution-oriented process uses the dynamic of regression as a deep dive and the process of rising, seeing the situation from the whole by integrating aspects into a bigger picture. The deeper one gets, the higher the capacity for dealing with


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complexity and uncertainty. The process forces the individual to take ownership and initiative by co-creating the situation. It shifts networks from a chaotic mass of ideas, concepts, and experiences to a new level of order, integrating learning on different levels in different institutions and regions and results in a shift to a mutual understanding and professionalization of leadership for learning.

Overview

agency

structure

sustainability

From 2004 through 2010 we were commissioned to develop and conduct two nation-wide reform initiatives working in two strategically important areas with a view to reconciling theoretical dichotomies of social systems such as agency and structure (Giddens 1984) or micro and macro perspectives, which may be represented as a spiral development leading to improvements in student learning (see Fig. 17.2). The first system-wide initiative is the Leadership Academy, a learning context with the aim of influencing the pattern of how professionals in leading positions think and go about change. It builds on conceptual change as a driving force for leadership development. The second initiative, the reform project New Middle School (NMS), requires a fundamental reorientation of the instructional and organizational system of teaching and learning for 10- to 14-year-olds by dissolving the structure of tracking in lower secondary schooling and creating homogenous groups. A third spiral loop, Hierarchy meets Network, concerned with sustainable leadership for learning by opening up the hierarchical discourse between the ministry and the classroom, is in its early stages of development.

Hierarchy meets NetworkInitialising innovation

sustainable leadership

New Middle School (NMS)

strategy & structure developing a new school

Leadership Academy (LEA)

Fig. 17.2 Spiral development for sustainable leadership

leadership development

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The First Loop: Leadership Development Making Educational Leaders Agents for Reform Since the beginning of the 1990s, Austria has had a compulsory school management training program for the first years of appointment as a prerequisite for a permanent position as a school head (see Fischer and Schratz 1993, 204–208; Schratz and Petzold 2007, 26). This is an on-the-job training program helping new school heads to change their role from that of a former teacher to leading a school, introducing them to the basics of their new role. Because they are organized for the school heads of a certain region (usually on a provincial level) and directed to individual new school heads leading their (new) school, these training programs cannot contribute to system-wide development in a coherent manner. Nationally, school leaders are an important link in the synchronization of topdown and bottom-up processes (cf. Fullan 2005) and are the key actors in promoting quality processes in schools (Hall and Hord 1987; Firestone and Riehl 2005). Pont et al. (2008, 19) also refer to the decisive role of school leadership in school reform: “It bridges educational policy and practice.” If central reform initiatives are to be coherently integrated into the life of schools and classrooms (cf. Stoll et al. 2002), a new approach to capacity building for professional school leadership had to be developed as a prerequisite to system-wide change. As a consequence, in 2004 the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture sought an innovative concept for the professionalizing of its 6,000 school leaders and other executives in leadership positions in the Austrian school system. In order to learn from previous reform initiatives in Austria and the research findings on innovation and change, the need for a new approach was framed around the following questions: • How can the complex decision-making structure be disentangled and the different demands of central and federal interests be brought into balance? • How is it possible to coordinate communication and actions both of policy and practice among the different levels of the system? • How can a learning context which aims at influencing the pattern of how professionals go about changing their organizations be created? • How can the system be energized by more individual and organizational empowerment? • How can leadership be more closely connected with learning by creating better conditions for student achievement? • How can professional development create system-wide culture change and be linked with the improvement capacity of the actors on the different horizontal and vertical levels? We address these questions by presenting the philosophy of the Leadership Academy in ten principles, each of which highlights the innovative character of its design.


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The Ten Principles of the Leadership Academy (LEA) Principle 1: Work with the Whole System in Large Group Arrangements Recently, several methods have been introduced for engaging whole systems in development processes, such as a Future Search Conference, Real Time Strategic Chance (RTSC), Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and World Café. They all aim at including as many people as possible in systems development, engaging them fully in the change process (Holman et al. 2008). Taking the recent developments into consideration, the LEA is organized in cohorts of up to 300 participants from across the whole education system, so making use of the manifold expertise of educational leaders and identifying with the overall goal of systemic innovation. Each cohort is composed of 250–300 participants from all provinces and school types as well as the ministry, regional education authorities (including the inspectorate), and teacher education institutions. This ensures right from the outset that a systemic impact on change and transformation is possible and that the “whole system” is involved in a joint learning process. The role of the LEA is in congruence with the principles of a learning organization and cooperates closely with responsible decision makers in the ministry. Moreover, the joint efforts of the large number of representatives from different sectors of the education system generate the productive energy necessary for an inspiring and inclusive vision as a basis for profound change (Bruch and Vogel 2005). As a part-time program the LEA consists of four forums which take place over 1 year, in which all participants within a cohort meet for 3 days each. The kick-off takes place in the First Forum, which is designed to orient participants on the philosophy, organization, structure, and underlying processes of the LEA. They are introduced to setting their own goals and choosing their personal professional projects which lie at the heart of their individual development. The creation of trust in the network takes center stage, as well as the forming of learning partnerships and collegial team coaching groups (CTCs) and the elaboration of possible innovation themes. Between forums the learning partners and the CTCs meet regionally or locally. They reflect on the reactions of their stakeholder groups in their schools, education authorities and inspectoral systems, or teacher education institutions with reference to their individual development projects. These processes develop through cycles of anticipation, action, and reflection. The principle of ownership and responsibility is combined with a goal and result, which demands respect, openness, and flexibility from everybody involved. In the Second Forum, the individual development projects of participants are defined, developed, and outlined, using project management methods and tools. In this phase, the CTCs are responsible for collaborative reflection on individual development processes with a view challenging established patterns of thinking and time worn “solutions.” In the Third Forum, participants reflect on their mutual

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experiences during the implementation of their development projects. This is the creative space where skepticism, resistance, conflicts, and tensions come to the fore just as much as agreement, motivation, and enthusiasm. Different workshops on communication, motivation, conflict resolution, and decision making are offered as a support for individual learning and capacity building. Art workshops, dance, or survival camp techniques support the holistic learning approach. In the Certification Forum, participants present their professional learning processes and their results – first in the privacy of their CTCs before deciding collaboratively on one project of their CTC to be presented to the others in a final phase of parallel sessions. For successful certification, each participant of the Leadership Academy has to submit a portfolio on their individual, personal, and professional development process for review.

Principle 2: Involve All Types of Schools and All Levels of the System to Connect Horizontal and Vertical System Levels School systems are usually organized along the hierarchical structure of the political system with the ministry on top and the schools at the bottom. As school reform does not work along “detailed deliverology” (Hargreaves and Shirley 2009, 110) the LEA invites educational leaders from all levels of the hierarchy (schools, local administration, inspectorate, ministry, teacher education institutions) and takes them into a stimulating setting outside the (hierarchical) system: The LEA has its venue at the campus of the Alpbach Conference Centre, which also hosts the European Forum Alpbach, which, similar to the World Economic Forum in Davos, brings together politicians and decision makers from all areas to discuss and brainstorm new ideas and solutions to the world problems (see Fig. 17.3). For Hargreaves and Shirley, the hardest part of educational change is not to start it, but how to make it last and spread, which calls for coherence in the nature of activities which bridge policy and practice. “The challenge of coherence is not to clone or align everything so it looks the same in all schools… The challenge, rather, is how to bring diverse people together to work skillfully and effectively for a common cause that lifts them up and has them moving in the same direction with an impact on learning, achievement, and results” (Hargreaves and Shirley 2009, 94–95). They suggest the following four catalysts that create this coherence: sustainable leadership, integrating networks, responsibility before accountability, and differentiation and diversity. Bringing together key actors from all levels in the system is an attempt to pay attention to these four catalysts with a view to greater coherence in systems development. Through the dynamic work arrangements in various settings (large groups, small groups, coaching groups, critical friendship, regional networks), new energy for change processes is created, which can then be taken back into their traditional work places, helping to contribute to overall coherence.


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Fig. 17.3 Connect horizontal and vertical system levels

Principle 3: Build Networks Rather Than a New Construction Site The LEA is a network organization and is not built as a physical environment. As Fullan argues, “We need a radically new mind-set for reconciling the seemingly intractable dilemmas fundamental for sustainable reform: top-down versus bottom-up, local and central accountability, informed prescription and informed professional judgment, improvement that keeps being replenished” (2005, 11). Bringing together leaders from all parts of the system helps in engaging everyone in a mutual development process, leading to new ways of thinking and acting. The LEA invests in capacity building as a way of strengthening systemic leadership by shifting reform policy away from a mere top-down process toward a network-based development. Network co-ordinators in all Austrian provinces function as the regional support system to ensure regional networking. The networking character of the LEA aims at creating a new mentality of leadership which relies on trust and authenticity rather than on power through position. Its ultimate goal lies in sustainably, improving the preconditions and processes of young people’s learning in all educational institutions. Networking serves the capacity building, qualification and empowerment of leaders in the Austrian educational system. Leaders are motivated to strategically target complex development tasks through priority setting, focusing on solutions, individual development projects, and creating organization profiles. The participants learn to translate challenges into innovative development processes and entice and empower staff in their work environment to achieve top performances.

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The LEA network creates an intellectual as well as practical focus within a new paradigm of both personal and institutional improvement in leadership capacities at all levels of the school system. Networking requires a new understanding of theory and practice, one which transforms the educational system by taking the quality of leadership as the starting point for systemic innovation. It creates a learning context which aims to influence the patterns and habits of professionals in leading positions, enhancing their capacity to develop and transform their organizations. Principle 4: Link Agency with Structure In several countries, the ascendancy of school leadership is linked to the government’s goals of raising educational standards and modernizing the education system and therefore “the primacy of leadership is part of a wider agenda of transformation across public services where leaders are the vehicle by which policy reforms can be implemented and change realized” (Forrester and Gunter 2009, 67). We regard this kind of “functional organizational leadership” as a managerial approach of neoliberal policy making rather than leadership, which is associated with being visionary, motiva tional, inspirational, and innovative. Due to the discrepancies between reality and the ideal, conceptions of leadership in recent years have been increasingly characterized by notions of personal leadership. As a result, there is a delineation of characteristics which apply to individual leaders and strategies for influencing the behavior of their associates. “A concept of leadership represents a (normative) system of recommendations for action on the manager’s part, both in reference to personal responsibility and their personal leadership tasks. Leadership concepts are based explicitly or implicitly upon one or more leadership theories” (Stähle 1999, 839). For our work in the LEA we have found Hinterhuber’s theoretical model (2003) helpful, in that it attributes differentiating attitudes, mind-sets, and actions to Management and Leadership, modeling them along the Eastern conception of Yin-Yang (see Fig. 17.4). According to the Yin-Yang metaphor, there is no clear-cut division between mana gement and leadership, and yet their features are distinct. There is no “either – or” but an “as well as.” Management carries elements of leadership and vice versa. Management is more a state of behavior referring to norms; leadership is more a (moral) attitude of influence. Behaving (managing) without a moral attitude is just as problematic as leading without acting according to (given) norms. Competency in management is easier to acquire than the capability of leadership, not the least because leadership is never a solo act. Rather it is a social activity, which should enable others to rise to their individual challenges and meet them with the necessary measures. It is school leaders who are in contact with many different stakeholders (not just within the school but in society at large: the community, politicians, the public, etc.) and they are also the ones to register their differing (and at times conflicting) interests. Leadership can only be effective in so far as leaders are willing to take on, and work to, their own moral (and policy) agendas, but these need to be grounded within the political framework in which their education systems operate,


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Fig. 17.4 Interrelation between management and leadership (Hinterhuber 2003)

since the weight of normative pressures bears differently upon varying educational contexts (cf. Portin et al. 2005). Culturally embedded trends “are based not on the laws of physics but on human habits, albeit habits on a large scale. These habitual ways of thinking and acting become embedded over time in the social structures we enact, but alternative social structures can also be created” (Scharmer 2007, xiii). In his structuration theory, Anthony Giddens (1984) “talks of the duality of structure in which social structures are not fixed sets of rules and resources but are features of social systems that have to be recreated in the specific moment of action. Such recreation can only take place when human agents act in this way or that and a powerful influence at that point is the reflexivity and knowledgeability” (Frost 2006, 4). Therefore, the implication of Giddens’ theory of action is that social (or organizational) structures can be modified by the agency of individuals. Through its energy-driven approach and large group intervention the LEA promotes agency as a driving force in leadership for learning. Principle 5: Create a Mind-Set for Innovation In many ways, knowledge and excellence based on past experiences have lost their validity as a portent for future success. What we learned about management and

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Fig. 17.5 Pattern change through creative intervention

processes and what has worked for us up until now does not necessarily provide the answers to the diverse problems of today and even less so tomorrow. Very often education systems have reacted to pressure in an attempt to improve achievement within the existing framework of functionality. This “more of the same,” however, often leads to little improvement, since a typical learning curve reaches the upper limit of further outreach. Old patterns bump up against the limitations of the potential solutions. Sometimes, special arrangements are made (e.g., through incentives) to attain best practice status, which, however, are difficult to implement because of their special status (e.g., model schools). Hentig (1993) therefore argues that it is not enough to renew or improve schools; he calls for rethinking school, demanding a new mind-set as to how we envisage school. In research, theoretical and methodological discussions have taken place in the process of reframing the “classical approach” to changing patterns of schooling at large, and teaching and learning in particular (e.g., see Vosniadou 2008). We see this reframing process as a shift of pattern from best practice to next practice (see Fig. 17.5). For new patterns to emerge, critical incidents or interventions are necessary to enable an opening up of perspectives for next practice (Kruse 2004). However, leaving the trodden path initially causes insecurity and instability: The old patterns of mind do not function any more, and new ones have not yet gained stability. The experience is similar to an incubation phase for the emergence of the new, which conjoins with the old or even questions it. Creating a mind-set of sustainable change is a key concept which runs through all the phases of the LEA. Principle 6: Learn from the Future as It Emerges (Theory U) Creating a mind-set of change cannot be imposed or enacted; it is rather about a human being’s innate capacity to create new knowledge. Otherwise, as Scharmer (2007, 119) argues, we are “downloading” patterns of the past, so preventing us from creating a new future. In his “Theory U. Leading from the Future as It Emerges” he develops a systemic theory of leadership which centers on “Presencing,” a term which


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he co-constructs from “Presence” and “Sensing.” For him the essence of leadership builds on the capacity to feel in the here and now those future possibilities which are most salient rather than “downloading the patterns of the past.” To activate this vital potential as a leader, three preconditions are necessary: an open mind, an open heart, and an open will. Opening the mind is based on our intellectual capacity, which allows us to see things “with fresh eyes,” which asks for new perspectives on leadership practice. Opening the heart, relates to our ability to access our emotional intelligence, which asks for empathy to feel the sensibility of the field. Opening the will “relates to our ability to access our authentic purpose and self,… It deals with the fundamental happening of the letting go and letting come” (41). “Presencing” is the moment when we connect to the source. Scharmer describes these three stages of openness as new intelligences which every leader has to nurture and cultivate like precise instruments, helping to create the best possible future. Leadership, he argues, “in its essence is the capacity to shift the inner place from which we operate” and “leaders who understand how can build the capacity of their systems to operate differently and release themselves from the exterior determination” (373). This leads eventually, says Scharmer, to a “shift from sensing exterior causation to sensing something collective that is emerging from within” (Scharmer 2007). Using Theory U as a “social technology” in the LEA helps in challenging participants’ traditional views on leadership. It takes them onto a very intimate journey of personal and professional learning about one’s understanding of the world and organizations and it highlights forms of learning on both the individual as well as the systems level as an interwoven and essential dialogue. Applying Theory U in their everyday practice enables the participants to pursue a path to an “ecosystem of innovation” in which profound change through “co-creating and co-evolving” social realities becomes possible. This should open a wide field for both individual and collective learning and understanding and help to close the “split between matter and mind” and thus “gain access to a deeper participation in the process of social reality creation” (374). Principle 7: Create System Thinkers in Action Linking policy with practice through networking asks for new types of roles in the education system. Fullan sees their role as system thinkers in action. These are “leaders at all levels of the system who proactively and naturally take into account and interact with larger parts of the system as they bring about deeper reform and help produce other leaders working on the same issues. They are theoreticians, but they are practitioners whose theories are lived in action every day. Their ideas are woven into daily interactions that make a difference” (2005, 11). Bringing representatives from all sections of the system together is a prerequisite for creating system thinkers in action. In the LEA we use the social technology of collaborative team coaching (CTC, Schley and Schley 2010) to practice system thinking in action. Each CTC team consists of heterogeneous groups of six participants

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who work within a strict structure. This fosters a solution-oriented approach rather than a problem-oriented one. In each collaborative team coaching session, one participant as “actor” is guided from the “problem space” in which they are caught moving toward a “solution space.” Goal orientation, creativity, and inventiveness are the foundation and factors of the philosophy of the CTC. The collaboration in the CTC enables a precise diagnosis of key issues, including issues for the development, leadership, and management of an organi zation, offering concrete possibilities for solutions and their implementation. It helps to utilize a team’s intellectual, creative, and emotional potential; fosters entrepreneurial and goal-oriented thinking and acting; and encourages the forging of new paths and development of new strategies. Finally, the CTC reflects the process itself and analyzes the patterns and levels of energy during the CTC interaction. It enables reading between the lines. Often the energy explodes after a period of seeking and searching for the key issues and the breakthrough in “seeing the seeing” and “seeing from the whole” (Scharmer 2007). It strengthens the reliability of results. CTC is used for each participant in every Forum and back home between the Forums as a continuous learning and development process of colleagues by collea gues. It is practiced so that it becomes an integral part of an organization’s culture and a significant strategy for building a learning organization. It respects, and reflects, the complexity of the work, especially its leadership and management. Principle 8: Reflect and Connect Through Critical Friendship The smallest entity of the LEA is based on a learning partnership. This learning partnership is the home base for two participants, each of which aligns in a trusting reciprocal coaching partnership. They support each other through explorative questions, help to define project milestones, and guide each other through their individual learning processes. Each CTC consists of three learning partnerships forming learning groups of six, who consult and coach each other collaboratively. In their individual learning partnerships, the individual pairs act as so-called critical friends. According to Costa and Killick (1993) a critical friend is “[a] trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens and offers a critique of a person’s work as a friend. A critical friend takes time to fully understand the context of the work presented and the outcomes that the person or group is working toward. The friend is an advocate for the success of that work” (22). The advocacy for success is an important asset for the work of a critical friend. He or she deals with the outcome of the respective coaching phases in which his or her partner has been involved and helps in strategic planning for the “homecoming” after the forum. On the one hand, he or she monitors his or her partner’s progress in personal and professional development, by bringing in an outside perspective, on the other hand, the learning partners support each other in putting their new leadership insights into practice. This can take place through mutual visits to one


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another’s workplaces including phases of shadowing or simply through meetings exchanging experiences and critically reflecting on them. Principle 9: Connect Leadership with Learning “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other” is a quotation John F. Kennedy prepared for delivery in Dallas the day of his assassination. “Leadership” and “learning” have meanwhile been quoted as an indispensable pair in the context of schooling. However, there is a long way between a president’s vision and the transfer of school leadership into classroom learning. In recent times, great effort has been dedicated to bringing leadership into closer contact with student learning (MacBeath and Moos 2004; Frost and Swaffield 2004). Internationally, Leadership for Learning has become the concept which focuses on the effective relationship between leadership and the learning processes of students in the classroom (MacBeath and Cheng 2008). If we compare school as an organization with an organism (Pechtl 2001), “the heartbeat of leadership is a relationship, not a person or process” (Sergiovanni 2005, 53). And if we regard the learning school as a living organism, this “heartbeat” calls for enough resonance within the school to make the relationship between people at different levels; planning, culture, and structure in the system become visible. To put this concept into practice in the LEA, Schley and Schratz (2004) have developed a diagram illustrating a chain of effects in their leadership work. It serves as a mental web of meaningful relationships that point the way from leading to learning and back again. This chain of effects (see Fig. 17.6) illustrates how

SUBSYSTEMS

INTERACTION LEVEL

ACTION LEVEL

RESULT LEVEL

class teams

recognition

competence development

motivation/ experience

year cohorts

clear vision

awareness of self

goal orientation

culture

subject teams

individual encouragement

reflection/ anticipation

gain of insight

structure

heterogeneous grouping

variable cooperation

learning by doing

celebrating achievement

SYSTEMS LEVEL

people

planning Leadership impacts on

Awareness of the effects in taking goal-orientated steps

Fig. 17.6 Chain of effects from leadership to learning and back (Schley and Schratz 2004)

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leadership impacts on people, planning, culture, and structure and how, through interaction, it produces action and results related to the school’s goals. Principle 10: Use Energy as the Currency of High Leadership Competence Changing the culture of an organization is not easy to achieve. We use energy as a lever for promoting change, because it is easier to influence the energy of a system than to change the culture. In “The Power of Full Engagement” Loehr and Schwartz (2003) argue that “positive energy rituals … are key to full engagement and sustained high performance” (p. 16) and not the amount of time invested. Using positive energy during large group arrangements is an important feature of the LEA. It creates a positive collaborative culture for full engagement. Organizational energy is the power which helps organizations to move in a certain direction. The intensity of organizational energy is an indicator of how much emotional, mental, and behavioral potential can be mobilized to reach its goals. It is an indication of the vitality, intensity, and velocity of innovation processes. Bruch and Vogel (2005) offer an energy matrix which helps in assessing organizational energy according to the intensity and quality of innovation processes. The matrix in Fig. 17.7 depicts four quadrants of organizational energy in a field of tension between low/high intensity and negative/positive quality characteristics. In our work, we experience schools with low energy with negative quality level, often leading to resigned indolence. If there is a positive quality level, they rest within their comfort zone and do not see much need for change. There are also schools with a high energy level but negative quality characteristics, which acts as a corrosive force. There is a lot of energetic activity, but it is not used productively toward the future. Leadership for learning aims at reaching the top right quadrant with high energy and positive quality characteristics. This comprises the creative and productive impetus necessary for development processes. In other words, it involves a transformation from “mourning schools” into “breathing schools.” Six generations of graduates of the LEA (1,500 out of 6,000 school leaders) have become “system thinkers in action” (Fullan) and have begun collectively to sense,

Fig. 17.7 Energy matrix (Bruch and Vogel 2005)


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shape, and create a new future (Scharmer) for Austrian schools, which is already a critical mass using leadership as a leveraging factor for systems development. To get there, the concept of “agency” formed the bridge between policy and practice, between leadership and learning. However, we often heard the criticism that working at the “software” of the system (agency) would not change the “hardware” of the system (structure). That is why we based our work on Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory, by which he attempts to move beyond the dualism of structure and agency and argues for the “duality of structure”: social structure is both the medium and the outcome of social action. This is where Loop 2 in our spiral approach (Fig. 17.2) comes in.

The Second Loop: Development of a New School The second, more recent nation-wide reform initiative in Austria is the development of the NMS, with the aim of fundamentally reorienting the instructional and organizational system of teaching and learning for 10- to 14-year-olds. Avoiding the early tracking of children at the age of 9–10 years is one of the core elements in this development work, which builds on a framework in fostering as well as challenging all children, irrespective of their social, cultural, and language background or their individual performance at the end of grade 4 in primary school. Shifting the decision on the future educational careers of juveniles to the end of lower secondary level should make for better integration of children and young people whether migration background and special education needs. Such a whole system intervention cannot be dealt with in its complexity. We concentrate on three system activities: the paradigm shift, autonomy and respon sibility, and the role of the development facilitation.

System Activity 1: Inventing a New School The acceptance of the bid in a public tender for the national facilitation of the NMS development has given us1 the chance to link the work of the Leadership Academy involving the different leadership levels in the system with the work of innovative schools in the NMS reform initiative. Regarding our triple spiral model (Fig. 17.2) we were offered a chance to look at agency from a structure perspective in Giddens’ duality model. Dissolving the structure of tracking in lower secondary education requires a fundamental reorientation of the instructional and organizational system of teaching and learning for 10- to 14-year-olds in heterogeneous groups, which most actors in the educational arena were not prepared for. Class work with variously gifted pupils from a wide ability range combined with the need to focus on developing key

Further members of the NMS development facilitation team are Christoph Hofbauer and Tanja Westfall-Greiter.

1

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learning

a fundamental change in understanding the teachers' role streaming personalized a structural shift in dealing learning with diversity assessment feedback different ways of focusing on student achievement followership agency new assumptions about motivation 'My classroom and I' 'Our school and we' understanding the school as a social system concept implementation systems a switch in orchestrating the development change process vertical command lateral integration a new perspective of the and control sources for innovation

Fig. 17.8 Shifting the system on a higher level

competences such as self-reliance, responsibility, creativity, flexibility, as well as communication, conflict management, and team skills calls for a new learning culture. Inventing the NMS asked for a shift of the system to a higher order (Fig. 17.8). Such a paradigm shift creates awareness of the hyper-complexity, which Scharmer (2007) sees as critical for systems development and therefore calls for working with the three complexities (dynamic, social, emerging) as central forces (see Fig. 17.1). In order to avoid the classical model of a top-down implementation, the ministry asked schools to decide themselves if they wanted to become an NMS (meaning an “innovative school”), which needed a two-thirds acceptance by the school community (including parents). Although many schools became interested in participating in this nation-wide reform agenda, the federal parts of the system had to be convinced, since they are vital parts of the decision-making process if schools want to become NMSs in a federal system. At the beginning, the educational authorities of the regions and the local authorities had been skeptical and opposed innovative opportunities in the historically conflicting structure between central decision-making and decentralized accountability. Historically, this conflict has often prevented school reform in Austria due to the dominating policy culture (Pelinka 1996).

System Activity 2: Centralizing Knowledge, Decentralizing Activity In order to avoid downloading patterns of past controversy, Trompenaars and Hamden-Turner (2001) suggest a leadership approach for the twenty-first century which reconciles seemingly opposed values by asking the vital question “Can you make the distinctions necessary to leadership, yet integrate these into a viable whole?” (p. 3). For them “[v]alues are differences, and any difference posits a continuum with two contrasting ends” (Trompenaars and Hamden-Turner 2001), which express


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values in tension. For them, conceiving of values as in opposition is not wholly satisfactory, and that is why they ask “After all, without decentralized activities, what is the purpose of centralized controls?” (p. 5). They note “that there is a subtle change of wording: ‘centralization’ has become centralizing (knowledge) and ‘decentralization’ has become decentralizing (activity). Control comes from the center, activity comes from the field. Instead of the two values negating each other, they complete each other” (pp. 5–6). We have learned from Trompenaars and Hamden-Turner’s meta-theory of leadership that the integration of the two values represented by the central ministry and the regional education authorities need not be seen as opposing forces but that it is possible to create a “culture space” which shares knowledge from multiple sources. To create the opportunity for a culture space to develop in the different provinces, the national ministry simply set the framework for the NMS (e.g., abolishing tracking, giving all children the chance for a high quality education, enhancing class work with variously gifted pupils from a wide ability range); the subsystems could define the best way of achieving the overall goals. The different federal systems of the country took advantage of the space offered in different ways. Four (out of nine) provinces started, others took a wait-and-see stance until the second and third generations. Individual regions labeled the NMS with the names of the provinces (e.g., VMS for the Vorarlberg Middle School or SMS for the Styrian Middle School) to make regional differences visible and to foster identity of their own within a centralized school reform. In this way transparency, interaction, cooperation, and competition became vivid forces in the process. Thus, the framework of the NMS is communicated centrally, but the dialogues of the actors in the regions are the driving force to give the new school a face or an identity. This only works, however, if students in the classroom are also engaged in the dialogue. This approach follows the logic of structural analogy, which exhibits a fractal pattern. A framework consisting of objectives and competences is given for each level of the system (national, regional, school, classroom) which has to be designed dialogically by the relevant actors. Whereas conventional reform delivery is characterized by an implementation mode of a given reform package, here the “culture space” has to be filled by the respective actors (stakeholders), which can only happen dialogically as a process of co-construction. This process follows the different levels suggested by Scharmer in Fig. 17.1. The stage of motivation which can be reached is an indicator of the professionalism of all partners in the system – students, teachers, heads, administrators, etc. – through languaging.

System Activity 3: Facilitating Reform Development In the autumn of 2008, we started on the journey of our NMS development facilitation with the first (pioneer) generation consisting of 67 schools. Building on the expertise of graduates from the Leadership Academy, we tried to represent the

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W. Schley and M. Schratz working at the system as learning designer

as colleague in the system

in a steering function as member of the school development team

Fig. 17.9 Multiple roles of the “learning designer”

whole system of the emerging future of NMS in our social architecture and thereby bridge leadership with learning. To do so, we agreed on the following principles for facilitating reform development: Principle 1: New Goals Require New Roles Every school taking part in the NMS innovation process had to select a teacher to become a “learning designer” (Fig. 17.9). Since this role did not exist previously we were able to portray it as a new task shifting the perspective from teaching to learning. As a colleague one is a teacher like all the others working in the system. In the “designer” role s/he takes on an extra role helping the school head to arrive at a new learning culture, which centers around the individual child with his or her individual potential. In doing so, s/he works on the system and in a steering function by becoming a member of the school development team. Principle 2: Heterogeneity Requires Shared Leadership Working with nonhomogeneous groups call for shared leadership of school heads and learning designers. The process of clarifying the roles and understanding within the different professional areas is a crucial first step in shifting self-awareness and responsibility so that all students attending Neue Mittelschule pilot schools are supported and challenged in every possible way so as to help them develop their gifts and talents.


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Principle 3: Create Professional Learning Communities Bringing the different levels of decentralization together and establishing heterogeneous regional and local groups in professional learning communities (PLCs) has proven a powerful means of capacity building (Wenger 1998; Wenger et al. 2002; Stoll and Louis 2007). Principle 4: Foster Transparency and Open Dialogue A nation-wide platform was created for fostering transparency by making different practices visible and encouraging open dialogue on different ways of dealing with crucial issues of NMS practice. There were debates and later on dialogues on tracking, assessing, learning, teamwork, collaboration between different types of schools – in cooperation with the national project management in the ministry. An EduMoodle platform offers an additional virtual space for communication. Principle 5: Keep the End in Mind Understanding of competence-oriented learning and performance-based assessment requires a “backward design” approach to curriculum development (Wiggins and McTighe 2005). This process for designing curriculum begins with the end in mind and designs toward that end, a process which helps determine the necessary (enabling) knowledge and skill, and the teaching needed to equip students to perform effectively. Principle 6: Difference Makes a Difference Establishing heterogeneous groups in teaching and learning requires a critical dialogue in respect of individualization and personalized learning. It is important for the school to become aware that it constructs differences “that make differences.” It is of vital importance to become aware of their influences on the social construction of reality. Principle 7: Innovation Is a Strategic Activity System innovation builds on people and processes on the one hand and, on the other, bottom-up movements such as professional and systems development at the regional level as well as commitment at the school level (Fig. 17.10). Intelligent use of intellectual and social capital is essential for system development. People are different. Situations and cultures are different. To create a culture change and a shift in mind-set, it is necessary to focus on special areas of leadership. To start a process or to reflect and evaluate a certain period of change and development,

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W. Schley and M. Schratz innovation

Strategic Leadership change agents

leading processes

leading people

regional development

motivation and commitment at school day today activities

Fig. 17.10 The NMS innovation strategy (Riemann, Ulrich, Schley)

one has to focus on strategic issues. Strategic leadership creates the vision, faces the emerging future, and turns feelings of uncertainty into clarity and attractive goals. In our NMS development, this is the role and task of the Ministry of Education. It has opened the mind-set of stakeholders to educational innovation, creating a mission based on trust and courage, using the Scharmer concept of shifting Capitalism 2.0–3.0. Shifting to a 3.0 culture allows open dialogues, uses the power of networking, and works with personal responsibility and collective intelligence (Scharmer 2009a, b). To sustain change dynamics, it is vital to build up a powerful network structure connecting people in all sectors, regions, hierarchy levels, and functions of the education system. Empowering these change agents leads to a culture of mutual understanding and creates a high level of energy directed by the demanding goals and development tasks (Fig. 17.7). Working with a nation-wide ecosystem of people sharing the goals, personalizing the vision, being identified by the power of leadership for learning, leads to the next step: building small units of people working together in PLCs and building the capacity for learning and student progress. Establishing a professional network of stakeholders in regional school management has helped to build centers of excellence as a supportive link in capacity building. The fourth field of action relates to a strategy which connects students, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders in the different units of the educational system toward a higher level of motivation and commitment. The fundamental understanding of our approach is not building on (external) experts implementing an innovation program but the activation of the energy in


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School Year 2009/10 Sept

Oct

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Regional National Learning Learning National Atelier Networking Ateliers Conference

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NMS Initiative Round (Ministry)

Jan

Local Learning Ateliers

Feb

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National National Learning Atelier Networking Conference

April

Regional Learning Ateliers

May

Local Learning Ateliers

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NMS Initiative Round (Ministry)

Fig. 17.11 Intervention strategies of the NMS development facilitation

the field. The role of facilitation is to clarify roles (e.g., learning designers [Fig. 17.9]) and procedures in the interplay between national, regional, and school levels. Such an intervention is shown in the time line of the NMS development facilitation during the school year 2009–2010 (Fig. 17.11). The different symbols in Fig. 17.11 show the intervention strategies used by the NMS development facilitation: Meetings of Initiative Rounds on the ministerial level help reflecting the relationship between policy and practice in the innovation process. Learning Ateliers bring together the learning designers (67 in the first year, 176 in the second year) at the national, regional, and local levels. Networking Conferences with the school heads and regional coordinators are part of the professional strategy aimed at empowering the whole system and leading on to a higher level of motivation and commitment.

The Third Loop: Hierarchy Meets Network The third loop takes the development further in the spiral dynamics and leads to collective presence and ecosystems of innovation. In the past few years, various networks sprang up in Austria aiming at bringing innovative actors in the field together on a thematic strand (e.g., LEA, NMS, net1 [network of innovative schools], ÖKOLOG [education for sustainable development], GeKoS [gender competence schools], IMST [innovation in mathematics and science teaching], etc.). They usually collaborate with a strong center serving as a think tank, strategic base and coordinating management structure and have regional nodes which act as places of diffusion of innovation in the provinces. Traditionally, these networks have contri buted a lot to improvement in the core competence fields. However, they are often isolated from other parts of the system because of their strong interest and mission in creating change in their core competence areas. Seen from the perspective of the whole, there is a lot of productive energy (Fig. 17.7) in key areas but it is seldom connected to what Scharmer calls the national ecosystem. This is where the third loop comes in: Connecting innovative people from different networks with a view to opening up perspectives and generating a flow of

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creativity among “system thinkers in action” from different domains. To do so, the Minister of Education invited the members of the various networks to take part in a dialogue connecting the vertical (hierarchy) and horizontal (networks) forces of the system. Two thousand two hundred people were invited and, within 3 days, more than 1,100 agreed to take part. On this basis network meetings across the networks were planned in each of the nine provinces to stage an open dialogue connecting the hierarchy (ministry) with the innovative networks. Our role and goal as researchers and facilitators was to create a “culture space” for valuing differences and opening thinking. “Open thinking… … strives to remove barriers to allow for the expression of individual differences without getting locked into habitual patterns or unexamined assumptions. … anticipates that change is inevitable and shows considerable elasticity without always jumping on bandwagons. … acknowledges the role the external conditions play in making change easy or difficult for people … is usually displayed in good listening skills, a non-judgmental approach to life, tolerance of differences and a lack of closed-mindedness.” (Beck and Cowan 2006, 78)

The social architecture of the nine meetings entitled “Network in Dialogue with the Minister” (1 day each) built on the following components: The minister offered a dialogue, inspired the audience and opened minds for new perspectives, giving the innovative practitioners a clear view of her vision for the future of the Austrian schools. As her ministry also comprises culture and the arts, a short video clip on excellence in symphony music including a world-famous Austrian conductor was shown to create a deeper “understanding of the primary field conditions that structure these patterns of emergence” (Scharmer 2007, 293). By comparing and contrasting professionalism in different segments of society they were invited to find new ways of what the steps from “open mind” to “open heart” to “open will” could mean to them. Student performances from the fields of theater and music complemented the power of art in education. Another important topic of the event program was storytelling: Three leaders of initiatives which impacted on student learning were asked to tell their stories of their adventures in changing mind-sets, attitudes, interactions, and systems, all directed at open and personalized learning, participation and activity, innovation and creativity. We borrowed the idea of the “positive change core” which is embedded in innovators’ stories from “Appreciative Inquiry” (AI), a “cooperative search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system ‘life’, when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological and human terms” (Cooperrider and Whitney 1999, 10). AI was also used to structure the afternoon by involving “the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to heighten positive potential” (Cooperrider and Whitney 1999, 10). Network members were asked to mix with other networks and ask each other about their success stories in an endeavor to change attitudes and mind-sets so as to bring about change. By listening to each others’ stories they began to “pay increasing attention to what is coming in through the ‘back door’ of one’s mind. It is at this stage, that groups begin to function as an instrument


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for an emerging future” (Scharmer 2007, 293). By deepening their mutual understanding they started “crystallizing” core themes, patterns and puzzles, a process which Scharmer characterizes as the shift from network to ecosystem (Fig. 17.1). The minister took part in the event, empowering the audience and inviting participants to build achievement on trust within the new school, which no longer means only the NMS. This led to a high level of energy, created an open space with a shared mind-set and mutual understanding of shaping the future of learning and creating inspiring places for the next generation. As a follow-up, a series of network meetings are planned and organized for each Austrian province, in order to maintain the spirit and impetus of innovation that had been experienced during the meetings, during which people thought together, felt together, and acted together. The process of capacity building with more than 1,000 stakeholders of innovation at school met the needs and desires of many people in networks and regional institutions. The minister herself experienced a learning curve with regard to issues, innovative ideas, and a shared sense of purpose and principles. She showed her awareness by seeing, sensing, and reflecting along with the audience. Her impressions were emotional and inspiring. Being so close to the members of the networks shifted the level of trust and created mutual understanding. The specific constellation of diverse players collectively formed “a vehicle for seeing current possibilities and sensing emerging opportunities” (Scharmer 2007, 311). It consisted of strong impressions of a chaotic system (a synthesis from chaos and order). A total of 80–200 members met at 10–25 round tables using communication rules of AI, Open Space, and Transformational Change perspectives in flexible arrangements. For us, the experience was unique in the way that we experienced the members of the various networks in dynamic interaction with rectors of the university colleges of education, political heads of regional administration, and specialists practising the grammar of the social field and shifting from debate to dialogue. At the end of the event, hearts and minds seemed opened and connected; a mutual space of trust, creativity, and dialogues seemed to create a generative flow. For many, it was a first step from transactional to transformational communication. It is our task now to go on and establish regional networks to connect the different ideas and ways of understanding the role and shape of the new school connecting leadership with learning.

Evaluation and Research Several activities and measures have been taken to evaluate or research into the LEA: • LCS (Leadership Competence scale): A self-assessment instrument which is used at the beginning and at the end of one generation by the participants, which is analyzed from a meta-perspective (Zürich University). • Ten case studies looking into how school leaders put their learning experiences into practice (Innsbruck University; Schratz et al. 2010).

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• A quantitative study comparing heads who took part in the LEA with school heads who had not participated in the LEA (dissertation at Vienna University). • An OECD case study: “The Leadership Academy was selected by the OECD Improving School Leadership activity as an innovative case study because of its system-wide approach to leadership development, its emphasis on leadership for improved schooling outcomes, its innovative program contents and design, and its demonstrated potential to achieve effective outcomes” (Stoll et al. 2008, 215). • Investigations into specific aspects of the LEA (e.g., micro arts, the language of leadership). Evaluation of, and research into, the NMS is coordinated by the BIFIE (National Agency for Educational Research, Innovation and Development of the Austrian School System), which is organized on formative and summative domains.

Outlook Matters of innovation and change are often seen as merely organizational or technological questions, turning complexity into a series of (trans)actions from policy to practice. However, dealing with complexity does not mean creating more complex structures of planning, acting, controlling, and developing systems. The shift to an organic understanding of growth is related to openness and trust, which best help in reducing complexity of systems: Speaking openly opens others. In our work with the three system-wide initiatives described, for us Scharmer’s trilogy of “Open Mind,” “Open Heart,” and “Open Will” has become part of the professional culture (Scharmer 2007). By doing so, we have been actors and observers of a shift in mind-set and culture, overcoming the traditional abyss between policy and practice. The field work with many stakeholders on all levels of the system has taught us the wisdom of many in the collective intelligence of practice and opened up new dimensions of dealing with system-wide development. The performance of the school system is based on an understanding of the diffe rent situations, contexts, demands, and challenges within each organizational unit. Consequently, developing performance is not simply achieved by sending individuals on a training course but a journey through the “field structure of attention” (Scharmer), which builds on different modes of (self)awareness. “Self-awareness is about knowing how your actions affect other people” (Owen 2009, 287). The level of awareness on how “system thinkers in action” (Fullan) is able to develop the whole system by “presencing” (Scharmer 2007, 242) has increased during the last 5 years. We are becoming aware of an emerging organizational learning culture which is characterized by a spirit of innovation, commitment, and new attitudes to dealing with complexity, facing dynamics, taking risks, and learning from mistakes. Looking back on our journey at this juncture, we particularly see four distinct powers which have served as levers in successful system development: strategic leadership concepts, leading change strategies, building infrastructure, and sustainable


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leadership through participation. It remains an exciting experience to continue building on the collective wisdom, realising that key persons are now better coping with emerging complexity. Rather than solving a problem by adding just another layer of regulation or infrastructure, we need a process of co-evolution that allows people to see and act from the emerging whole.

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