Whenever a new iPhone is launched, Apple puts a significant campaign into highlighting the changes that make the latest release unmissable. There is new language to describe the capabilities of the camera, a fresh narrative to highlight the new abilities of everything under the hood, and the user experience is – once again – completely unique. All things considered these changes tend to be minor improvements that tweak the original formula. In many ways I find educational books of leadership models to be much the same. They sell a revolutionary approach, a fresh lens and a unique perspective – but ultimately isn’t the package just a tweak on what has been said before?
Robyn R. Jackson’s latest book “Stop Leading, Start Building” sells the latest iPhone release with a huge amount of self awareness: “the problem isn’t you; it is just that you were trained in school leadership, and school leadership just isn’t up to the challenge”. The point of difference is we are now sold “buildership” not “leadership” which emphasises the transformation that can take place with the people and resources that you already have (7). And it’s great! It’s a leadership model that makes sense, with lovely examples to back it up. Jackson balances vague exemplars that can be used as templates for the readers’ contexts and specific stories to share prior success. Divided into four sections, each examines the shift to buildership in a meaningful way:
- Purpose
- People
- Pathway
- Plan
However, I couldn’t help but cynically wonder how much this latest iPhone is just tweaking the old formula. For example the table below helps to introduce the difference between a boss, a leader and a builder. These reductive differentiation amplifies the transformative power of “buildership” – but I question how much of the buildership column doesn’t already exist in literature around leadership.
One transformative shift that is emphasised in the book is the power of vision, mission and values. Again this is all great stuff and highlights fundamentals of effective change leadership but I can’t help but be reminded of the Lippitt-Knoster Model for Managing Complex Change, which has been doing the rounds for over thirty years. Is buildership a fundamentally different approach or is it just the latest edition of the iPhone attempting to stand out from the crowd?
One area of the book that I think does stand out from the crowd is a rehash of what Jackson has already written about in her 2013 book “Never underestimate your teachers”. It is about the approach to People (part two of the buildership model). Jackson contends that “every teacher can be a master teacher with the right kinds of support and practice” (45). She makes a case for this by applying the will and skill matrix, which suggests there are four kind of teachers:
- High skill, high will
- High will, low skill
- Low will, high skill
- Low will, low skill
The framework can be used to diagnose a teacher’s actions – such as in a teacher observation: is the start of lesson routine unsuccessful because of a lack of will (not seeing it as important to the outcome of the lesson, a bad day, not planning this aspect) or skill (do they know how to create a successful do now, or lack behaviour management strategies for successful start of lesson routines).
The buildership model develops this by suggesting there are four ways of improving will and skill:
- feedback (giving feedback for next steps)
- support (help and guidance to grow practice)
- accountability (set expectations, goals, targets)
- culture (create a culture that encourages growth)
The builder will implement these four steps in different ways that are dependent on the diagnoses of will and skill. This is what Jackson expands upon significantly. Much like how I’ve encountered using the Myers Briggs type-indicator model before – how you approach any given teacher is dependent on who that teacher is. With this knowledge, these conversations can be a lot more effective.
Overall, I’m cynical of the transformative potential of this specific approach to educational leadership. However, Jackson continues to communicate some of the most effective and useful leadership models for schools. When it comes to revisiting, I would suggest “Never underestimate your teachers” is the better place to go.
Jackson, Robyn R. (2021) Stop Leading, Start Building: Turn Your School into a Success Story with the People and Resources You Already Have. ASCD: Alexandra, Virginia USA.
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