Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Navigating the Politics of Change in a Suburban School District: A Phenomenological Study 237
the impact of perception or reality on those levels. I realized quickly that my self-perception
described in that journal entry did not match those of the teacher leaders that I worked with.
One teacher leader I spoke with at an alternate district meeting stated that she was so glad that
I was making changes to the training plan for teacher leaders (Reflective Journal, August 30,
2008).
This teacher leader and others that communicated similar messages perceived me as
the person that was going to make the large scale changes to an established model of teacher
leadership in the district. I attempted to explain that decisions were being made at a much
higher level, but it seemed as if the TLTs could not see past me (Reflective Journal,
September 20, 2008).
Because I was often the only central office employee who had contact with this group
on a regular basis, the teacher leaders perceived my role in the organization as one with a
great amount of influence and power. One teacher leader commented, “You are working on
behalf of us at the central office….You will continue to make great changes happen”
(Reflective Journal, April 4, 2009). The teacher leaders perceived my role in the organization
very differently than I did, and that view impacted their views of my ability to create change.
Throughout the change process, I attempted to explain that the reality of influence did
not reside with me, but truly within the abilities of the teacher leaders. Fullan (1999)
explained that for school change to occur, a synergy must be in place between all
stakeholders. The elementary TLTs numbered sixty and were placed on every campus in the
district. This was the reality. They each had a partner to work with on campus that served in
the TLT role as well. In collaboration with TLTs from other campuses, they discussed at
length the structure and support of the TLT model on individual campuses. The conversation
centered around the TLTs looking to me as the one with power to wield over principals, and
when I turned that around to help them focus on themselves as the powerful ones because of
relationships they had on campus, their thinking shifted. This conversation about selfperception
and their view of my role in the change effort was powerful. At this point in the
study, perceptions began to shift, and the teacher leaders began to feel more empowered to
use their upward influence to make changes on their campuses. Kaul (2003) stated that
upward influence is the ability to use multiple tactics to impact superiors toward a personal
goal. The ability to perceive yourself as a person with that upward influence was important in
being able to impact the reality of change. The ideas or themes of power, influence,
perception and reality were central to the change process of the TLT model in this study;
however, other factors were evident that impacted levels of power and influence as well as the
perceptions of others within the change effort.
Core Factors that Impact the Change Process
Patton (2002) explained that a researcher must be able to clearly define from the
literature and from the data collection how the themes and factors emerged and were
supported in the data analysis. In this research study, the power and influence quadrants that
we worked within to make change, the perception that we had of ourselves as well as the
perception that others had of us, and the reality of a situation were all directly related to the
four core factors of change in an organization: (a) roles within the organization, (b) ability to
communicate, (c) personal motivation or agenda, and (d) resource control. Each of these
factors contributed to or took away the amount of power or influence every person within this
research study exercised.