LEADING INTERNATIONALLY

 LEADING INTERNATIONALLY

By

Preethi Joseph

Leadership promotes associations among the faculty and the school community, which helps to align with the vision of the leadership. Building strong relationships and influencing the faculty to appreciate a collective purpose is one of the foremost challenges of being a leader in a multicultural environment. Some of the ways in which leaders enable collective relationships among diverse staff bodies are discussed below.

Positioning

Leadership positioning is the exploration of one's own culture, values and the roots of one’s professional development in the context of a school environment. It is the critical evaluation of one’s values and practices in relation to all areas of school life. It helps guide one's plan of action as a leader.

I think positioning is a key element in uniting the staff from diverse backgrounds, cultures and values  in an international school setting. For this the leader has to be in recognition of their own belief system. It is this cognisance that goes beyond one's own belief system to understand the values and cultural facets of the staff and community. It is the deep introspection of oneself that leads to culturally responsive relationships between the leader and the faculty and the development of best-in-class school practices.

The challenge most leaders face is the lack of awareness of one's own cultural and professional formation. Another challenge could be a clash of belief systems which could lead to immense friction in relationships within the faculty. 

Structuring

Research based evidence suggests schools which support team-based approaches have better teaching, learning  and decision making processes, which eventually impact student learning outcomes. For schools that intend to promote collaboration and communication among the faculty, the leader must have a clear understanding  of the cultural diversity of the staff body and their openness to a collaborative environment. Giving leadership opportunities for groups of faculty to take ownership of teacher related issues may also lead to positive outcomes.

I believe it is important to have open discussions with faculty, allow input for suggestions and accountability in work but I also think that overtly collective work tends to take away creativity and individualism which I think is just as important as collectivism. 

The challenge for school leaders is to create circumstances that encourage faculty to see collectivism as beneficial.

Expectations

In a multicultural environment, where a leader intends to build collective capacity, it is necessary to understand the expectations of the faculty in relation to school life. Expectations being cultural in nature tend to affect the way teachers see themselves in the school environment and relate to their interactions within the classroom and their colleagues. In order to structure collective capacity within the school, leaders must be able to evaluate and gauge the cultural and educational norms that already exist within the school faculty as they influence the way school interactions take place. Leaders who are interested in building collective capacity structures will take into consideration the collective cultural values of the faculty and the controversial issues from previous school dialogues to create a well rounded structure for collective work.

I think it is imperative to streamline the expectations of the leader and the faculty for positive outcomes and is probably one of the main factors in developing a strong school community.

The challenge is to approach staff to learn how they see themselves as it may seem confrontational and uncomfortable for both staff and leaders. And it may be hard to get accurate responses in certain school settings.

Expression

Collective capacity is built by effective communication. Forms of communication range from degree of expression in dialogue, importance to hierarchy and protection of privacy,  which may vary from culture to culture and can be associated with the openness, clarity and cultural understanding of faculty. 

In my opinion, in  a multicultural environment, understanding and respecting different communication styles, and willingness to cooperate to get the task at hand done in an effective and efficient manner, without undue stress between the intercultural members of the team, is crucial to the efficient working of a school. 

The challenges that are commonly seen are ineffective communication and misunderstandings between the group members, different working styles and expectations of group members, and intolerance and lack of knowledge related to diversity.

Profiling

There is a general tendency to bring cultural understanding into multicultural group dynamics as it seems to ease working with different peoples’ values but perhaps the involvement of culture in all aspects of collective capacity building may be seen as cultural profiling or stereotyping. Another aspect of profiling that is frequently seen in multicultural communities is “tokenism”, where a symbolic effort is taken to represent people of different cultures to appear to be inclusive or multicultural.

From my perspective, holding culture responsible for the actions of individuals is not accurate. Stereotyping is a harmful way of describing people from different cultures and it does not truly give individuals their due credit. I believe that every person has his or her own personalities that should be assessed and respected rather than have them covered under the blanket of cultural stereotypes.

The challenge here lies in that in the process of being respectful and understanding of cultural differences and values, the faculty and all members of the community should be appreciated and valued for their abilities and competence. 

CITATIONS

Allan Walker & Geoff Riordan (2010) Leading collective capacity in culturally diverse schools, School Leadership and Management,