The Guilt of Instructional Leadership

My View

How many can relate to the following statement: “I feel like all my time is spent managing my district, leaving no time for me to be the instructional leader I want to be”?

I hear this lament often in my role as executive director of Iowa’s school administrators association. The more I hear it, the more it concerns me, but probably not for the reason you think.

Somewhere along the way, we were led to believe as education leaders that a red line exists between management and instructional leadership and that the work classified as management does not constitute instructional leadership.

Further, the perception seems to be that not only are management and instructional leadership distinct, they are not equal. Management work is seen as a necessary evil because it takes us away from what we have been told we should be doing, which is being in classrooms or engaging with front-line staff in some other way. As a result, when we do those necessary management activities, we feel guilty because we are not being instructional leaders.

Not Either-Or

It is time to stop thinking this way. We have enough to do without being weighed down with guilt. But that will necessitate looking at things from a different perspective.

To start, let’s call into question that supposed red line between management and instructional leadership. Can the work we do as school leaders really be compartmentalized into two separate and distinct categories? Or does everything we do actually have elements of both?

I ask those questions whenever I have a chance to meet with district and building leaders, and it amazes me how quickly that red line blurs. To illustrate, here is an example shared by one of our state’s up-and-coming leaders, Josh Moser:
“Prior to assuming a school leadership position, I subscribed to the idea that good administrators lead in public and manage in private — an attempt to hybridize two prominent leadership paradigms. My thinking was leadership referred only to those tasks associated with instructional leadership — conducting walkthroughs in classrooms, coaching teachers, participating in public recognition activities and executing professional learning.

“In short, leadership referred to those actions that are readily observed by students, faculty, staff and the community. The behind-the-scenes aspects of the work, such as state reports, building- and district-level paperwork, and employee discipline, are relegated to the realm of management.

“What I have learned from the nuances and gray areas of administration is there are few aspects of school administrators’ regular responsibilities that do not comport with the aims of instructional leadership. The only real division between instructional leadership and management lies in one’s approach to the work.

“In other words, every interaction, every piece of paperwork, each little detail in educational administration has the potential to be a means of leading the organization rather than managing it.

“This isn’t about trying to come up with some new term or framework for how school administrators do their jobs; it’s more like coming to terms with what the work really is: a blended, seamless interchange of leadership and management in order to best serve the needs of those in the organization.”

Joint Fulfillment

I love this perspective. What it says to me is that no aspect of a school leader’s work can be classified solely as management or instructional leadership — everything you do has some elements of both. As one superintendent recently put it, “Can’t we just call all of it ‘leadership’?”

The answer is we CAN and we SHOULD. Your job as an education leader in a community is to create an environment where learning is stimulated every minute, every day. As Josh Moser notes, that will take different forms, depending on the day and the situations that confront you.

During the course of each day, some matters arise that only the leader can handle. If you are feeling weighed down because those things keep you out of the classroom, and others have led you to believe you are only a leader if you are in the classroom, please recognize that by taking care of those matters, you are fulfilling your role in the system. You are doing those things that only you can do to keep learning stimulated. And you are being the educational leader you always wanted to be.