PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT // THE BROWN COLLECTIVE
Leading the creation of a positive school culture NURTURING THE DEVELOPMENT OF POSITIVE SCHOOL CULTURE IS A KEY ROLE FOR A SCHOOL LEADER, NOW CONSIDERED A VITAL FOCUS TO ENABLE BETTER ORGANISATIONS AND HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS.
Positive, toxic, poor, nurturing – these are all prefixes to the word ‘culture’ that are used on a regular basis to describe organisations ranging from political parties, international sporting teams to government departments and schools. What is organisational culture, why is it important and how do leaders nurture, stimulate and support the development of positive, productive workplace cultures? Dr Stephen Brown, Managing Director of the Brown Collective and global leader in the field of school leadership development and formation, has been fascinated by these questions. “I have been involved in supporting and
Lead Fellow Dr Stephen Brown (right) working with Schools Plus Fellowship program winners from the Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards.
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education matters secondary
contributing to the formation of school leaders for decades and such questions are at the heart of the work of any leadership role,” he says. Dr Brown says that an organisation’s culture is “the patterns or agreements that determine how the business operates” or simply, “how things work (or are done) around here” (McHale, S, 2020, p. 2). How can leaders build productive, generative, workplaces such as schools? Many school leaders struggle when they try to describe elements that create a positive culture, writes Leah Shafer for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It’s tricky to define and parsing its components can be challenging. Amid the push for tangible outcomes like higher test scores … it can be tempting to be vague or soft to prioritise, Shafter adds. Dr Brown suggests that school leaders should be obsessive about organisational culture – it is a hard and necessary part of leadership that enables performance. In their seminal work, The work of leadership, Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie (2001) suggest that leaders sometimes frame their work in technical terms such as the production of policy, procedures and increased compliance measures in response to an issue rather than as adaptive or cultural work. Daniel Coyle in his 2018 book, Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, indicates that there are three specific culture builders: building psychological safety, sharing vulnerability and establishing a shared purpose. Andrew Fuller in his 2021 occasional paper entitled, Resilient Cultures, Resilient Strategies - The CPR Approach to Wellbeing & Resilience that students, teachers, parents and the community flourish when they feel Connected, Protected and Respected (CPR).
