<< Chapter < Page Chapter >> Page >

    Class objectives

  • To understand and comprehend the existance of resisters and saboteurs in a school building and/or district.
  • To help the aspiring principal think about positve solutions and strategies.
  • To develop a realistic and workable plan to deal with resistance within the school organization.

    Assignments

  • Read Phillip Schlechty's Five Types of Actors Click Here to access entire article
  • Read Creighton's Resisters and Saboteurs Below.....
  • Discuss Field Activity #3 and Peer Review

Field activity #3

Give your particular school site a snapshot look into the "existence (or non-existence)" of Schlechty's Five Types of Actors. Submit a two-four page analysis paper of what you observe. Obviously, no names of teachers or principal.

Resisters and saboteurs

The following is a chapter in The Principal as Technology Leader (2003) authored by Theodore Creighton, and published by Corwin Press. Though an apparent theme is technology implementation, this chapter is about "the leadership of personnel," and is applicable to all aspects of the role of the principal in the administration of personnel. As you read and reflect upon this material, I encourage you to substitute any of the many issues you deal with in your schools for the topic of technology implementation.

Ever so eloquently, Phillip Schlechty (1997) discusses five types of actors participating in any change process. It is important for school leaders to understand these different actors and their needs, desires, and roles in the process of any implementation of program development.

Every school has trailblazers: teachers and staff who willingly venture into the unknown, such as the implementation of technology. Education leaders are remiss if they do not provide opportunities for trailblazers to be out in front of innovation efforts. Pioneers, though as adventurous as trailblazers, need assurance that the program implementation is worth the effort. Settlers, the third type of actors, need more detail and specific direction than do the trailblazers or pioneers.

Resisters (called stay-at-homes by Schlechty) are simply satisfied with the status quo and see no reason to change their thinking or strategies for doing things. Though the principal must provide opportunities for resisters to see the advantages of the program implementation, resisters are generally not a threat to innovation. The danger of course is to neglect resisters, for fear that they will join forces with the fifth group of actors, the saboteurs.

Oh, those pesky resisters (and tyrants, time bomers, snipers, back-satbbers, underminers, connivers, plotters, and rumor mongers) !!

Most dangerous and detrimental to efforts to implement new programs to improve teaching and learning are the saboteurs: those teachers who not aren't interested in new programs, but are actually committed to stopping new ideas. Saboteurs can stop innovation in its tracks. They are very astute at knowing how to change directions - even by enlisting support from other staff, community, and board members. Schlechty posits that "the best place to have saboteurs is on the inside where they can be watched rather than the outside where they can cause trouble without being detected until the effects have been felt" (p. 218).

Get Jobilize Job Search Mobile App in your pocket Now!

Get it on Google Play Download on the App Store Now




Source:  OpenStax, School personnel administration and instructional supervision. OpenStax CNX. May 27, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10627/1.3
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.

Notification Switch

Would you like to follow the 'School personnel administration and instructional supervision' conversation and receive update notifications?

Ask