McREL's 21 Leadership Responsibilities

McREL’s 21 Leadership Responsibilities

For decades McREL (Mid-continental Regional Education Laboratory) has been researching the effects of instruction and schooling on student achievement. Specifically, one of their studies which consisted over a 30 year span has looked at the effects of leadership practices on student achievement. After their 30 years of research and an exhaustive review of literature on leadership, 70 studies met their criteria which involved almost 2,900 schools, 1.1 million students, and 14,000 teachers. And as a result, McREL came up with 21 leadership responsibilities that they have researched and have shown are significantly associated with student achievement. These 21 leadership responsibilities describe the knowledge, skills, strategies, and tools leaders need to positively influence student achievement, rather than personality traits or leadership styles. They have shown, contrary to misperceptions, that leadership is not an art but a science as shown in their data.

Their research found that instructional leadership is significantly correlated with student’s achievement. They identified 66 different leadership practices relevant to the 21 leadership responsibilities, each with statistically significant relationships to student achievement. They also found that teacher perceptions of principal leadership can either be positively correlated or negatively correlated to higher student achievement. Principal leadership negatively influences student achievement when leaders concentrate on the wrong school and/or classroom practices, or miscalculate the magnitude of change they are attempting to implement.

The 21 leadership responsibilities that they found that are significantly correlated with student achievement are as follows:
1. Culture: Fosters shared beliefs and a sense of community and cooperation.
2. Order: Establishes a set of standard operating procedures and routines.
3. Discipline: Protects teachers from issues and influences that would detract from their teaching time and focus.
4. Resources: Provides teachers with materials and professional development necessary for the successful execution of their jobs.
5. Curriculum, instruction, and assessment: Is directly involved in the design and implementation of curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices.
6. Focus: Establishes clear goals and keeps those goals in the forefront of the school's attention.
7. Knowledge of curriculum, instruction, assessment: Is knowledgeable about current curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices.
8. Visibility: Has quality contact and interactions with teachers and students.
9. Contingent Rewards: Recognizes and rewards individual accomplishments.
10. Communication: Establishes strong lines of communication with teachers and among students.
11. Outreach: Is an advocate and spokesperson for the school to all stakeholders.
12. Input: Involves teachers in the design and implementation of important decisions and policies.
13. Affirmation: Recognizes and celebrates school accomplishments and acknowledges failures.
14. Relationship: Demonstrates an awareness of the personal aspects of teachers and staff.
15. Change agent: Is willing to and actively challenges the status quo.
16. Optimizer: Inspires and leads new and challenging innovations.
17. Ideals/beliefs: Communicates and operates from strong ideals and beliefs about schooling.
18. Monitors/evaluates: Monitors the effectiveness of school practices and their impact on student learning.
19. Flexibility: Adapts leadership behaviors to the needs of the current situation and is comfortable with dissent.
20. Situational awareness: Is aware of the details and undercurrents in the running of the school and uses this information to address current and potential problems.
21. Intellectual stimulation: Ensures that faculty and staff are aware of the most current theories and practices and makes the discussion of these a regular aspect of the school culture

McREL reported that these 21 responsibilities can be used as a guide for change for school leaders. They also believe that in addition to these 21 responsibilities leaders must make sure that they properly identify and focus on improving the school and classroom practices that are most likely to have a positive impact on student achievement. In doing so, leaders need to understand the magnitude or “order” of change they are leading. McREL describes change in two different terms – “first order” and “second order”. First order changes are consistent with their prevailing values and norms within their schools and are just a natural extension of their ongoing efforts. Second order change, however, are changes made within a school that are a break from the past and may conflict with the prevailing values and norms of the school. Second order changes may require a whole new philosophy and new skills from the leader and staff. McREL stated that “a change is defined by the implications it has for the people expected to implement it or those that will be impacted by it.” Therefore, effective leaders understand how the changes they are leading will be received and understood by their staff and community and how to appropriately tailor their leadership styles to guide and support these changes.

In conjunction with the 21 leadership responsibilities, McREL stated that leaders need to know the value of the taxonomy within their schools. This consists of experiential knowledge - knowing why it is important, declarative knowledge - knowing what to do, procedural knowledge – knowing how to do, and contextual knowledge – knowing when to do it. Effective leaders not only know what to do, but when, how, and why to do it.

What makes McREL’s leadership qualities different from other theories and research is that they have research and data from over decades that show strong correlations to having positive impact on student achievement. Additionally, they are continuing to research and perfect their developments on educational leadership. I know personally, I want to use theories and principles within my school that have been shown to be effective across a wide variety of settings, for many years, and their studies seem to prove that. Their 21 leadership responsibilities definitely seem to cover a good foundation for anyone in the leadership field or going into the leadership field.