Blazing New Trails - Connexions

59
CRITICAL ISSUES IN SHARED LEADERSHIP
Superintendent Leadership as the Catalyst for Organizational Learning:
Implications for Closing the Achievement Gap
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
Victoria L. Kelly
George J. Petersen
In an effort to respond to the multiple and competing pressures placed upon schools,
district level leaders are persuaded to reexamine traditional organizational structures and
managerial practices. They are required to reconsider their roles and responsibilities in
articulating and modeling leadership behaviors that focus on the core technology of
curriculum and instruction and improved student learning.
The extant literature has highlighted the significant challenges created by social,
political, and economic trends and their influence on American schooling. While these
difficulties are understood and recognized as part of the changing landscape of education, a
body of literature has demonstrated that the implementation of successful instructional reform
depends on the leadership of the district superintendent (Fullan, 1993; Petersen, 1999, 2002;
Petersen, Sayre, & Kelly, 2007; Sergiovanni, 1990; Seashore, Leithwood, Wahlstrom, &
Anderson, 2010). Research in this area has shown that superintendents who focus on the coretechnology
and academic achievement of students exhibit specific behaviors, traits, and
practices, which influence classroom achievement (Bredeson, 1995; Herman, 1990; Morgan
& Petersen, 2002; Murphy & Hallinger, 1986; Petersen, 1999, 2002). Building on this body of
empirical work, this investigation concentrated on instructionally focused superintendents’
strategic linkage of their vision and instructional leadership practices and their efforts to foster
an organizational culture of learning in an effort to improve instructional effectiveness and
student achievement.
The data presented in this chapter were part of a larger and comprehensive
investigation of the transformational and instructional practices of the district leader to create
the capacity for organizational learning and those elements most influenced by these
practices. In this chapter, we illuminate the role and practices of the district leader in
strengthening interorganizational relationships through social networks. Our intention was to
learn as much as possible of superintendent leadership practices in relation to organizational
learning, not to develop a theoretical framework to generalize to other cases (Yin &
Campbell, 2003).
BACKGROUND
Heavily laden accountability systems have readjusted the lens of responsibility and
focused the academic achievement of students on the shoulders of district leaders. Although
conventional wisdom would have us view district superintendents as harried managers of
complex bureaucracies (Crane, 1989; Zigarelli, 1996), the move toward instructional leader-
Victoria L. Kelly, Lucia Mar Unified School District
George J. Petersen, California Lutheran University