So one of the wonderful things about participating in the NAIS Aspiring Heads Fellowship is meeting other amazing educational leaders and cheering them on. The finale of our NAIS Aspiring Heads Fellowship year involved each mentee group presenting their action research project at the annual conference. While we were in Baltimore I wanted to make sure that in addition to delivering our presentation, that I made it to some of the other fellows' workshops. One of the workshops I had a chance to attended was: Why aren't we outraged? Using Moral Leadership to Achieve NAIS Equity & Justice Best practices. They grounded their presentation in literature, including Thomas Serbgiovanni's work, and research and left me wanting to learn (and read) more.
As someone unfamiliar with Sergiovanni's work, I was definitely intrigued by how he framed moral leadership and how my colleagues connected with the work we do in schools. With in Sergiovanni's work he talked about leading with outrage and that concept struck me. First, it struck me because when you hear the word outrage you think anger and that really has no place in a school setting. However, when you dig deeper you see that it is not about being angry, it's about having your emotions move you to action because something just isn't right and because something important is not being tended to. I love that! We talk about students bystanderism and say to them "see something, say something." So should we really lead any differently? I would say no and that leading with outrage encourages us to operate the same way. If we see something that isn't right, could be better, or is one of those "we've just always done it this way", but shouldn't continue to then it's time to lead with outrage and remember that as Sergiovanni (1992) said "nobody has a special license to protect the standard." So really, we can't afford not to lead with outrage, for the students sake. They always deserve the best of what we have to offer and, therefore, leading with outrage is really the least we can do in all of our schools.
As someone unfamiliar with Sergiovanni's work, I was definitely intrigued by how he framed moral leadership and how my colleagues connected with the work we do in schools. With in Sergiovanni's work he talked about leading with outrage and that concept struck me. First, it struck me because when you hear the word outrage you think anger and that really has no place in a school setting. However, when you dig deeper you see that it is not about being angry, it's about having your emotions move you to action because something just isn't right and because something important is not being tended to. I love that! We talk about students bystanderism and say to them "see something, say something." So should we really lead any differently? I would say no and that leading with outrage encourages us to operate the same way. If we see something that isn't right, could be better, or is one of those "we've just always done it this way", but shouldn't continue to then it's time to lead with outrage and remember that as Sergiovanni (1992) said "nobody has a special license to protect the standard." So really, we can't afford not to lead with outrage, for the students sake. They always deserve the best of what we have to offer and, therefore, leading with outrage is really the least we can do in all of our schools.
*Brandt, R. (1992). On Rethinking Leadership: A Conversation with Tom Sergiovanni. Educational Leadership, 49 (5), 46-49.
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