In the older style, we move quickly to discussions about what is right or wrong in the observed person's practice. We, in urgency, have a "courageous conversation" with the hope of convincing the subject (student, teacher or administrator) that his or her way is erroneous. From there we measure either a complete conversion or a defiance depending on the person's observed subsequent actions.
This approach seems natural, not just because it is a traditional approach, but because it seems to set the expectations clearly in the moment and honestly.
With the advent of newer research in leadership, psychology, and public school organizational relationship work, we now have a new set of mysterious options that are supposed to lead to a "healthier organization". Relationship-based leadership, strengths-based organizations, and other organizational psychology theories suggest that there is more to the "courageous conversation" than simply having a conversation. We are finding that callibrating expectations, building a safe context for conversation, and reinforcing talents and skills over deficits have a deeper, lasting and, dare I say, more wholesome effect than a nip-it-in-the-bud style that has dominated the past ten years of change leadership.
If I could put these on a timeline, we would see that really "old" or traditional leadership was a bossy one, a what I say goes style. With the understanding that we are all humans, leaders began taking a different bent on interaction and change; they had a courageous conversation justified by the urgency for change to happen in the school system that has taken too long to come around. The emphasis on the conversation gave it a tone of talking it over, of collegiality and reality-setting.
I have to admit, almost all direct conversations are courageous because they risk putting someone on the defense. But more importantly, and often overlooked, they risk putting relationships into jeopardy.
I have seen, both as a student, a teacher, and now as an administrator, that real change only happens when a relationship of trust and safety has been built. And bigger than simply changing the other, I myself am changed because I transform alongside the other person. My initial view of any one situation may seem theoretically sound, but until it is tested in the confines of a true engagement with the other personality, I cannot judge what the true problem is, and I cannot assess a clear road of next steps.
So when I think urgency, it is the style of some to urgently get to the conversation about the problem. More urgent, and in the long run more expedient for all parties involved, is the building of a sound context for both the observer and the observed to interact in collegiality and respect.
There are always some students or staff who will jump to attention for that courageous conversation, making it easy to write others off and incapabale of change. But true transformation and engagement occurs out of a real desire to interact more fully with one's context, one's environment. And this happens theough a sound relationship.
At the elusive end of a good shot at a good relationship, we may end up having that courageous conversation, indeed. But until our conscience tells us we have attempted to understand the other, and to even better ourselves alongside the other, then that conversation must wait until the we have exhausted our efforts and attempted all methods of raising up our fellow educators and educated.
It is our art and science as leaders to confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that we have attempted to reach the whole person, because in any observation and judgment, the whole person on both sides of the lens is at stake.
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