Teachers are like most professionals in other vocations. They want to grow throughout the course of their career in education. This might be in formal leadership positions or in skill and knowledge - both admirable aspirations. Teachers often want to stay at their current school but are not given the opportunities to grow as leaders or broaden their skill set in a way that fulfils their desire to move ahead with their career . How many teachers do you know of that have moved onto other positions within new schools because their career aspirations or opportunities to advance are not addressed?
Pipeline Leadership is a model for growing the people you have within your organisation into the leaders you will need in the future. We have such untapped talent in many of our schools. Do we really know what our teachers aspire to? Where they see their future in education? Initiatives such as ACET here in New Zealand are trying to provide some recognition and incentive for teachers who are excelling in their careers to remain in the classroom, at the coalface in front of our greatest asset - our children.
Pipeline Leadership minimises the need to look outside of ourselves for new leaders, instead growing the skills and knowledge base within the staff already in the school, providing a firm platform for future growth and leadership. Effective Principals recognise the need for advancing student achievement and hand-in-hand seek to cultivate the leadership talents of their teachers. Building leadership teams, ensuring a meaningful delegation of responsibility and developing future school leaders have to be the most effective ways of managing a school effectively (http://www.newleaders.org).
The Pipeline Leadership model seeks to develop leadership skills at every level in an organisation which means that the knowledge and mindset required to lead at the next level is successfully developed in the people moving forward into new leadership roles.
How might this work in a school setting? What sorts of conversations and Professional Learning opportunities would we be seeing if we were seeking to develop the leadership talents from within? What feedback and feedforward would be given freely out? How would we be supporting and mentoring each other?
I will leave you with a quote from Tom Peters:
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