ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 1

Brief overview of problem of practice

Pollock, Lopez, and Joshee (2013) present a case study involving a school-based

leader, Marcus, a newly assigned administrator to an ethnically diverse, low income school.

The majority of families are English Language Learners (ELL), and the school and

community centre are hubs of the community. There is a want for more involvement and

sharing of culture within the school, voiced by the parents. Parents had approached a previous

principal about getting involved with the students, but there was no interest on the

administration’s side.

The school has a high turnover rate for staff. Tension appears high with staff,

especially after Marcus broached the topic of equity and a school improvement team. Staff

feel that parents are not invested in the school and as a result, the school council is sparse.

When Marcus arrived with an eagerness to engage the community and parents, staff

expressed they had no interest investing extra time into this initiative, and casted blame on

the families for not understanding Canadian values and the fact they are “poor” as a

roadblock for change. Marcus feels there is a lot of bias and prejudice within the school staff.

Description of Two Leadership Styles and Why They Were Selected

Constructivist leadership was selected as it is grounded in the construction of

knowledge between participants through reciprocity, equity, and shared meanings (Yildirim

& Kaya, 2019). The constructivist leader encourages all stakeholders to be active participants

of change (Yildirim & Kaya, 2019), and Marcus wants to cultivate this in his attempt to get

teachers, parents, and the community working together. Staff are overburdened and will not

be easily swayed in their practice or the time they dedicate to school improvement. There

needs to be a shift in schema and a constructivist approach will work to involve multiple

perspectives and encourage social negotiation (Narayan et al., 2013). The involvement of

parents and hearing their voices will be integral in making a shift for the school. As a result,
ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 2

staff will be immersed in learning about the community’s families and their perspectives and

values.

Servant Leadership, proposed in 1970 by AT&T executive Robert Greenleaf, is a

people-first approach that promotes stewardship, staff support, and community building.

Servant Leadership is grounded in pillars such as listening, empathy, and healing (Corelli,

2021). At Marcus’s school, the staff turnover rate is high, and they have a need to be heard in

order to shift their thinking and their practice. A servant leader will have the people skills to

approach the situation with staff and families in order to understand everyone's perspectives

and support the staff more genuinely as they engage with the community. Tschannen-Moran

(2013) discusses the importance of trust amongst leaders and staff for the collective effort of

reaching and exceeding goals. Building trust through relationships is critical to Marcus

persuading his staff to change.

Resolution of the Problem of Practice

Constructivist Approach

As a constructivist leader, Marcus must first continue his work understanding staff

perspectives, biases and prejudices, and unearth the fears and reservations that are impeding

staff in moving forward (Lynch, 2014). He needs a clear picture of the perspectives and

feelings of the staff and parents in order to understand his approach.

Parents

Marcus’s first step is to increase communication with families in order to get more

people involved and active in the school community. Because it is a multilingual community,

he can have his newsletters and school communication translated into the various languages

spoken by parents and students. From a constructivist angle, a parent engagement session is

important to listen to perspectives to garner an understanding of their wants and needs as

school stakeholders (Lynch, 2014).

ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 3

Once there is clarity around parent expectations and involvement, Marcus can

welcome parents to become involved as active participants in daily school activities. Develop

a parent volunteer committee who can organize events, such as a staff appreciation day so

that staff start to see the value in parent participation and start to build empathy to shift their

bias (Glaze, 2018).

Staff

A constructivist approach is about listening to others and reconstructing one’s own

perspective (Yildrim & Kaya, 2019). The staff are hanging on to preconceived notions, and

as a school team, everyone needs to learn to move beyond the lens they have built for

themselves. Have staff engage in reflective practices with one another to consider their biases

and assumptions in order to analyze what parent and student participation can entail (Edith

Cowan University, 2019). For example, have parents come in and share their hopes and ideas

for being a part of the school community. Staff need to hear voices other than their own in

order to understand their students’ home and environments outside of school (Glaze, 2018).

Marcus can invite a guest speaker to come in to discuss culturally relevant pedagogy with

staff to start the conversation of ethics and reflective practice (Glanz, 2006).

Servant Approach

Marcus's servant leadership success at his previous school has not yet been built with

this new school's staff, as a result he does not yet have their support. Even as staff push back,

Marcus will need to lean in to understand their perspectives more fully and determine how to

persuade them to engage the parents and community. “A Servant Leader does not demand

that their employees fall in line but instead encourages people to work towards a group

consensus” (Rocco, 2020, para. 17). Patience will be critical to Marcus’s success.
ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 4

Parents

Marcus has an advantage that is not fully realized by staff due to the lack of

community engagement of the previous administration; the parents are eager to be involved.

Bier (2021) notes that leaders must engage all stakeholders, including teachers, parents, and

students through conversation regardless of the power they hold; everyone should have a

voice. While the parents are external to the school, engaging them in their child’s educational

journey will help, not hinder, student progress and staff workloads. Communicating with

parents regarding their participation in the school’s day-to-day activities will help inform the

extent to which they want to be involved and will also provide Marcus with some new ideas.

Staff

One practical method Marcus can employ to help staff understand the importance of

engaging parents and the community is by inviting parents and students to staff meetings and

school assemblies. In these sessions, students and parents can share about their own culture

and enlighten staff and other students about their transition to Canada. Stewardship is

foundational to servant leadership. Marcus can lead by example by joining his staff to help

with school bus drop off and can greet students with "hello" in their native languages. Bier

(2021) says that as principals enact servant leadership, the knock-on effect is that the

behaviour will influence teachers to serve one another and their students. In both of these

solutions, Marcus is setting the example that will inspire staff to do the same.

Strengths and Drawbacks of Each Leadership Theory

A constructivist approach will be necessary because the staff are in a difficult

mindset. Expecting them to passively absorb why they need to shift their thinking and

approach families in a different light will not be effective. The constructivist school leader

will need to act as a facilitator and coach to help staff garner deeper understanding of their
ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 5

school’s community stakeholders and learn from an authentic outsider’s context - the families

(Aguilar, 2020; Narayan et al., 2013).

A drawback of a constructivist leadership approach is that it “is interpretive and

dependent on the learner’s experiences and understanding” (Narayan et al., 2013, p. 169). In

the case of the school staff, they have some deeply rooted opinions on the families of the

students. This approach may be difficult to rid staff of some of their biases and prejudices.

Another drawback is that constructivist leadership requires the involvement of the learners,

which in this case is the school staff (Narayan et al., 2013; Yildirim & Kaya, 2019). In this

case study, staff are reluctant to go above and beyond academics to support their students.

Servant Leadership focuses on community and connection which is a focus for

Marcus. If growth and well-being are Marcus’s goals for his school, the staff needs to learn

more about other cultures to deconstruct their biases. Their prejudices are unacceptable and

as Rocco (2020) states, “you are accountable for what happens in your workplace, whether or

not you played a role in the final result” (para. 21). Staff must learn more about the

oppression and marginalization of these people groups to reflect inclusivity in their

conversations and actions.

Marcus's own servant leadership will be further pressured by the new obstacle of time.

Servant leadership is relational, and developing relationships takes time and trust. With the

impending deadline to implement the division’s equity policy set by the board, Marcus will

need to put his ideas more immediately into action as a beginning step. Finally, Marcus’s

previous experience puts him at a disadvantage in this new school due to the fact that the staff

are less interested in engaging the community. Marcus may need to detach himself from his

expectations and focus on long-term goals.

ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 6

Regardless of what leadership approach Marcus initiates, he will need to engage both

parents and staff in this process. It will take time for staff to shift their current mindset, and

they need to be supported along the way rather than be given ultimatums or directives.
ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 7

References

Aguilar, E. (2020). Coaching for equity. Jossey-Bass.

Bier, M. C. (2021). Servant Leadership for Schools. Journal of Character Education, 17(2),

27– 46.

Corelli, J. (2021, August 6). 10 principles of servant leadership (and why it’s our favorite

style). Team Gantt. https://www.teamgantt.com/blog/servant-leadership

Edith Cowan University. (2019, October 8). 5 effective leadership styles in education. Edith

Cowan University. https://studyonline.ecu.edu.au/blog/effective-leadership-styles-

education#:~:text=Constructivist%20leadership%20is%20about%20immersing,that%

20we%20are%20all%20learners

Glaze, A. (2018). Reaching the heart of leadership: Lessons learned, insights gained, actions

taken. Corwin.

Glanz, J. (2006). Cultural leadership: What every principal should know about. Corwin.

Lynch, M. (2014). Ask Dr. Lynch: Constructivist leaders in schools. Education World.

https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/ask-dr-lynch/constructivist-leadership.shtml

Narayan, R., Rodriques, C., Araujo, J., Shaqlaih, A., & Moss, G. (2013). Constructivism—

Constructivist learning theory. The Handbook of Educational Theories, 169–183.

Pollock, K., Lopez, A., & Joshee, R. (2013). Disrupting myths of poverty in the face of

resistance. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 16(2), 11–19.

Rocco, M. (2020, February 5). Servant leadership: An ideal approach to enhance job

satisfaction in employees. ETech. https://www.etechgs.com/blog/servant-leadership-

enhance-job-satisfaction-in-employees/

Tschannen-Moran, M. (2013). Becoming a trustworthy leader. In M. Grogan (ed.), The

Jossey- Bass reader on educational leadership (3rd ed., pp. 40-54). John Wiley &

Son.
ED6150 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP – CASE STUDY 8

Yildirim, M. C. & Kaya, A. (2019). The contributions of school principals as constructivist

leaders to their schools’ organizational change. Asian Journal of Education and

Training, 5(1), 1–9. DOI: 10.20448/journal.522.2019.51.1.7