Adaptive Leadership for a Post-COVID World

Superintendent Shari Camhi is building a system in New York’s Baldwin Union Free School District where students are viewed as explorers and collaborators and teachers function as facilitators of learning. PHOTO COURTESY OF BALDWIN UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, BALDWIN, N.Y.

The ripple effects of the pandemic continue to be felt in communities across our nation and the world. For many institutions and industries, there will be no going back to the way things were prior to COVID-19. Education is not an exception.

The education community has had to adapt to new methods of delivering and receiving instruction that were deployed rapidly in early 2020. For school administrators, the demands of what was always a challenging job have been compounded by new regulations and recommendations from countless local, state and federal authorities. School administrators now more than ever need to lead their systems by focusing on the future of learning while still addressing the many daily challenges they face. The world around our institutions is quickly moving forward and education needs do the same.

As some leaders begin to move systems in a more future-focused process, there are many communities that believe doubling down on teaching basic cognitive skills remains the top priority. Although those skills are important for a solid academic foundation, simply getting back to teaching them is not the answer.

Continuity and Change

The nation is polarized, as are many school communities. Superintendents and principals are often finding themselves mired in conflict — not of their own making — about what is or is not to be taught in classrooms. Administrators facing these kinds of challenges need help finding balance, not only between groups of people but within their day-to-day existence.

For leaders facing these polarizing challenges, it is important to understand the value of “polarity strategy.” Think continuity and change. There are things in the current system that you will want to continue to provide, and there are new initiatives you would like to add. The key for leadership is not to make the situation an either/or scenario, rather a both/and scenario.

The pandemic has made people re-evaluate their view of the world, their community, their family, and themselves. In today’s environment, emotions are high and people are understandably on edge. The U.S. Army War College described a similar, collective emotional experience after the Cold War as a VUCA world, characterized by the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. (The VUCA world in K-12 schooling was addressed more fully in my article in the August 2020 issue of School Administrator.) In public education, successful leadership in a VUCA world requires systems to manage two types of performance simultaneously: tactical and adaptive.

Tactical performance refers to proven practices that we already know work in our system — what often are termed as best practices.

Adaptive performance builds on a future that is focused on emerging educational strategies that show promise in meeting the needs of learners living in this new world. Think of them as “next practices.” They create a different learning experience for the student. Moving forward, school districts need help identifying the tactical practices that no longer serve a purpose and discontinue them. The tactical pieces that work will continue on, such as International Baccalaureate programs. But it is the adaptive performances that will make school districts and their students successful in the future they will live in.

What Must Change?

Since the very beginning, schools and school leadership have been highly structured and predictable organizations. The once rarely changing system of education is no longer like that giant oak tree that grew gradually and consistently from year to year. Schools today are impacted by sudden transformations such as hybrid learning, advancements in technology and social issues. In their panicked attempt to respond to constant and numerous challenges, education leaders have tried to react to everything at once.

Most people do not think that way and will not respond to rapid, transformational change in an agreeable and productive manner. Rather, leaders need to understand the mindsets and personalities of the people they lead and implement the change process in a way that builds support and leads to results.

Leaders in our systems must learn to lead this new and complicated world. As the leader of people, you need clarity about the direction you are leading the system. This clarity is essential in guiding your judgments about how the system will get there. It will be problematic for the leader who believes everyone else in the organization is wrong. Leaders should never let their clarity about the future turn into certainty about the future. The future is best dealt with using assumptions, not concrete forecasts.

The Quick Solution

Learning 2025 is predicated on assumptions about the future, the year 2025 specifically. Predicting what schools, work and society will be like and demand of people even four years from now is impossible. Learning 2025 requires leadership that is future-focused, agile and change-friendly — what I referred to previously as adaptive performance. Education needs to evolve to survive in this rapidly transforming world. Charles Darwin would agree there is a strength in one’s ability to change and adapt to new environments and situations.

By example, in March 2020, Delta Airlines was faced, as many others were, with an extinction-level event. Fears of the global pandemic and restrictions on travel caused a precipitous drop in business and revenue. A serious response was required, so Delta made the decision that a quick solution first would lead to a better solution later.

The quick solution, though costly and unprecedented in normal times, was to block off the middle seats to maintain some degree of social distancing. Sales were down anyhow so, organizationally, Delta figured the best policy would be to gradually build back the public’s trust so that when demand would pick up again customers would feel more secure about booking with an airline that took decisive action early on. 

In essence, Delta, played the long game and it worked out for them in the end. By the fourth quarter of 2020, Delta’s revenue was 12 percent higher than the average of American, United and Southwest combined, according to a report in the August-September 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Delta is just one example of how an organization’s capacity to change matters. My colleague, Steve Brown and I have been working with Shari Camhi, superintendent at Baldwin Union Free School District in Long Island, N.Y., on the need to reposition the district to better prepare students for the demands of work and society. The project is called Baldwin 2035. Camhi designed a process and assembled a team of educators, administrators, community stakeholders and the board of education to create a powerful vision for the future of learning. 

The transformation was designed around learners as producers, pioneers, explorers, collaborators and innovators. Teachers are de-scribed as engineers, designers and facilitators of learning. Schools are being viewed as incubators, gardens and community centers. 

Ray McNulty, president of the Successful Practices Network, says only through adaptive performance will school systems succeed in preparing students for a wildly changing world. PHOTO COURTESY OF RAY MCNULTY

For the 2021-22 school year, Camhi asked the faculty an important question: “Do you want to help reinvent and create the future of education?” She then went on to engage 14 faculty members to be placed on special assignment for the year. The role of these teacher residents is to explore highly effective and innovative pedagogical practices that will create and foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, inclusivity and deeply involved learning. In addition, these residents will work with the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Successful Practices Network to build small prototypes of new models of learning.

The common thread that organizational leaders at Delta Airlines and the Baldwin school district share is their degree of change power. In both cases, leadership (1) identified a problem and determined what needed to be done to improve the outcome, (2) made a decision that would disrupt the normal way of operating to advance a solution and (3) identified and empowered individuals who could implement a change process effectively.

Managing Three Groups

Organizational leaders who oversee effective implementation of the change process understand that in the VUCA world, the design of a successful change process rests on managing well three groups of people.

»The Innovators. These individuals can recognize the benefits of and buy into new ideas and the change process early. They have a mind-set that feeds on change. When Innovators start doing the work, they begin to develop a process for implementing it into the system.

»The Early Adopters/Assemblers. These individuals watch the Innovators nurture and develop the process needed to get the work moving. Once this group sees the process and how it is implemented, they recognize the benefits of it. They, too, then obtain the mindset that, “Yes! We can do this!” Early Adopter/Assemblers need to see how the process is done first.

»The Early and Late Majority. This group is concerned about results. They are generally satisfied with the results of the work they have been doing and will not change unless they know that better or different results can be achieved.

Knowing how to empower staff and distribute responsibilities effectively is key to success. Staff will work collaboratively and set their individual egos and agendas aside if the work benefits the greater good for the students. Thoughtful and effective organizational leaders recognize how to systematically drive the process forward with confidence and clarity.

Understanding the mindset of each group helps leaders to plan for effective change. The innovators just need a great idea to jump on the project. The early adopters need to see how the process for implementing is going to work, and then they buy in. The late majority truly believe that what they are doing is getting good results and won’t move unless they see that the new system is getting better results. Understanding these dynamics will help build the capacity for transformative work.

To be an effective leader, you need to anticipate roadblocks and avoid being bogged down by the minutiae of the crisis-of-the-day by establishing a culture that carries others along on the crest of your wave, taking every opportunity to explain what is being done and why, and demonstrating the key benefits of your actions.

RAY MCNULTY is president of the Successful Practices Network in Rexford, N.Y. Twitter: @Ray_McNulty