Sustainability has become a buzzword used especially in relation to so-called green initiatives. But public and private enterprises are also being encouraged to adopt sustainable strategies in a wide range of other contexts, leadership being no exception.

The five core principles include distributed leadership, deep learning, leadership succession, networking and reflective practitioners- Rita Buhagiar

In their book Honeybees and Locusts: The Business Case for Sustainable Leadership (2010), Gayle Avery and Harald Bergsteiner devised a Sustainable Leadership Pyramid and recommended 23 criteria that lead to full sustainable leadership (SL).

Some of the benefits of SL are that it enables organisations to become more competitive and resilient, faster to respond to changes, more appealing to customers, more attractive to talented employees and more importantly, leads to long-term success of any organisation.

Although the criteria are mainly aimed at businesses, they share similarities to sustainable educational leadership (SEL) practices as proposed by leading international educators and researchers like Michael Fullan, Brent Davies, Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink.

Though these proponents have devised their own sustainable educational leadership prin­ciples, five core principles are by and large common to all. These core principles include deep learning, distributed leadership, leadership succession, networking and reflective practitioners; the last three are well researched areas in education though the same attention is not given to the first two principles.

With regard to deep learning, all proponents of SEL agree that it is a crucially important element. Though this type of learning occurs at a slow pace, Brent Davies in his book Developing Sustainable Leadership (2007) contends that deep learning is necessary because it yields positive educational outcomes leading to, among others, students having a positive view of school and the students engaging in problem-solving in a creative way.

Leadership succession is a crucial factor in long-term organisational viability. In their book Sustainable Leadership (2006), Hargreaves and Fink claim that taking responsibility for leadership succession is essential to ensure that improvement efforts endure over time.

Exposure to all aspects of the position, shadowing, mentoring, coaching, assignment of tasks and goals are some of the processes needed for leadership succession. Davies says leaders who see themselves as the sole factors in success often leave the organisation without effective leaders to succeed them.

Other SEL principles or their sub-divisions offer interesting leadership skills. Fullan, one of the earliest proponents of this leadership style in education, proposed a number of strong and unique SEL principles. Unique principles include the ‘system approach’.

In his book, Leadership and Sustainability – Systems Thinkers in Action (2005), he says it is important that in large-scale reforms, the entire context must be changed – not just the schools but all levels of the education system.

He also contends that if a system is to be mobilised in the direction of sustainability, all leaders should be given the necessary training, and the main work of leaders is to help out and put into place all the elements of sustainability, all principles simultaneously feeding on each other. He says that sustainable leadership can continuously regenerate itself in an ever-improving direction.

Fullan says the teaching profession should become attractive, and advocates the need for a ‘no blame culture’ in situations where individuals take unsuccessful initiatives.

Hargreaves and Fink focused on the need to avoid over- or under-use of staff. These authors recommend the renewal of people’s energy and say that leaders should not be drained out through innovation overload or unrealistic time schedules for change.

They also recommend that the best staff and students must not be raided from neighbouring institutions and thus prosper at other schools’ expense because it discourages greed and promotes social solidarity.

Hargreaves and Fink consider diversity as an important SEL and argue that productive diversity requires less, rather than more testing, greater curriculum flexibility and creativity. Diversity also helps with the knowledge and learning needs of culturally diverse communities and personalised learning.

These researchers say SEL builds on the past in its quest to create a better future. They refer to the protection of the natural environment and consider ‘learning to live sustainably’ as an added principle of learning.

Davies says passion should form part of SEL considering it to be the driving force that moves vision into action. He also gives importance to humility and professional will.

He says leaders must challenge poor performance, on the need of choosing the right people for the right posts and on the need to judge on the effective time to make a change and creating the capacity to undertake that change by abandoning other activities.

He argues that strategically focused schools should spend a great deal of time and effort on processes to involve staff, starting first on the ‘willing’, and then slowly drawing reluctant members of staff to join in.

SEL is a leadership style that requires great commitment, but in return it offers many advantages. It shares similarities with the great management skills advocated by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great (2001).

A leadership style advocated by leading international researchers and educators is certainly worth adopting for the benefit of all.

rbuhag@gmail.com

This article is based on a MSc dissertation on Sustainable Educational Leadership that the author conducted at Leicester University.

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