The Manager-Leader Conundrum

Would you consider your current Head of School (whatever their title) an effective leader? How about an effective manager?  Do they lean towards one of those roles more than the other?   

Once upon a time—okay, let’s just say several decades ago when I was starting out as a teacher—anyone in a position of authority in a school was called an “administrator.” That applied to Heads of School as much as to Principals, and reflected the long-standing habits of industrial-age, institutional education. “Administrators” in schools were essentially the managers within a large system. And they were trained in the language, concepts, behaviors and assumptions of organizational management. Today—and roughly since the mid-1990’s—people in these same positions are referred to as “leaders.” Or at least they are deemed “leadership positions,” a distinction worth noting.   

After a century of a Business Literature focus on management competencies as the foundation for organizational excellence, the focus has now shifted to being almost exclusively onto leadership competencies. With organizations facing enormous pressures to innovate and adapt in uncertain times, few people would disagree with the need to reframe the role of ultimate responsibility in those organizations. But what is the significance of this re-conceptualization of management as leadership? Does it mean that people now defined as leaders are no longer doing the work of management? Does it mean that all people in leadership positions are, in fact, doing the work of leaders? This article attempts to answer those questions as they relate to the specific role of a Head of School.

Let’s start by reframing the binary concepts of manager versus leader as a unified manager-leader continuum.  And that continuum has been impacted enormously by the pace of technological change as well as academic research.  Some of the biggest impacts:   

1. Deeper understanding of leadership itself, and the processes of change;  
2. Increasingly powerful and sophisticated tools now available to support both functions;   
3. How the two functions work together—they are complementary;  
4. Where on the continuum heads now spend most of their time. 

Before we look at those shifts, though, let’s clarify terms. The management end is essentially concerned with systems—those that define how things happen in every area of a school, from learning processes to maintenance;  from finance to child protection;  from human resource practices to facility development. When school systems are dysfunctional or misaligned, the effects are felt throughout the school, ultimately by students. So, it is vital for a school Head to put in the time to monitor the effectiveness of the school’s systems, and track alignment among them.  

The leadership end of the spectrum is more generative, primarily focused on articulating values, cultivating a sense of common purpose, and implementing the processes of change. Clearly these are all critical functions in a dynamic organization committed to remaining relevant in a changing world.

Although management and leadership both require paying attention to people and having strong communication skills, they utilize different lenses and behaviors. The management lens tends to focus on understanding how people work within systems; the behaviors include providing clarity about roles, and ensuring consistency of performance.   

The leadership lens recognizes people as dynamic human elements in a meaningful story of change, part of a community in the process of moving from a current reality to a new reality. That perspective lends itself to the behaviors of motivating, listening to, guiding, and empowering people. But despite different lenses and behaviors, these two approaches to the people in the organization are complementary.   

Where the rubber hits the road—or the Head hits the continuum, so to speak (apologies for painfully messing with metaphors)—is when the school’s mission, vision, and values are re-articulated, which needs to happen ever more frequently. This mission re-articulation process not only requires the Head to have a vision and to be able to engage the community in a collaborative process, but it also demands that the Head has the capacity to make the deep changes necessary for the school’s systems to be realigned with the refined vision and values. The dance begins! Shuffle, shift, shake.   Shuffle, shift, shake. A successful Head will achieve those continuous re-alignments (yes, they are continuous, so you better get used to it!) while sustaining a strong sense of community and commitment to the new vision. Hence the need for agility!  

Another practical example of this fluid, adaptive reality is how successful Heads work towards having an effective board of trustees. The management side of that particular challenge is the attention needed to all the systems that guide the board, such as clarity of policies, agreed norms and roles, parameters for committees, and protocols for monitoring accountability. The leadership side of working with the board entails having the emotional intelligence, confidence and creativity to: build trusting relationships with board members; help the chair attend to the board’s team dynamics; guide the board in maintaining generative focus on the school’s mission and values; and being receptive to constructive feedback. So, an effective Head is a managing leader with the board. As with almost every other aspect of the job description!  

So, in today’s context of exponential shifts in technology and seismic shifts in economic structures, Heads cannot ignore that both the manager and leader roles are critical. Successful school Heads (wearing their manager hat) recognize that systems are neither static nor stand-alone, so they pay close attention to the effectiveness of all the interconnected systems within the school and how well they are meeting the current mission, vision, and values. But they are also (wearing their leader hat) judicious about when to adapt systems to new needs, what the next potential iterations will look like, multiple pathways to the best option, who will be key players in making it happen, how to mobilize them, how to keep the community informed, and what measures will be needed to gauge success. Leadership is the art of managing change. 

That is the increasingly fluid area in the middle of the continuum, where emergent tools and adaptive mindsets come into play—where leaders can bring a dynamic approach to systems (such as recognizing when they need to be overhauled or thrown out completely) and mobilizing people around the values that make sense of the changes. 

So, there is no binary relationship between management and leadership, and maybe no conundrum at all. Effective school Heads today are simply dancing nimbly all over that continuum! One foot will usually be somewhere on the side of systemic accountability to ensure that all operational functions are contributing to a stronger whole. But the other foot will be moving down the other end of the scale, as the Head leans steeply into the complex challenges of leading change by anticipating possible futures and creating resilient, adaptive communities.