Continuous Improvement and Excellence through Teamwork: The Journey of the Senior Leadership Team of Montgomery County Public Schools

Abstract

Collaboration is seen as an essential skill that students will need to succeed in a twenty-first–century economy. American public school students are currently being asked to learn and demonstrate collaboration skills that the adults responsible for their education either do not have, have not been asked to use or do not practice well themselves. System leaders therefore have a daunting responsibility. They must model and foster a spirit of community, interdependence, and collective action around the work of instructional improvement. Senior leaders must exercise the kind of leadership that attends to the development of others, and organizes people in the system around a shared vision, purpose, and urgency, a shared commitment and shared measurable actions. To lead and support teamwork and collaboration effectively at all levels of their school systems, senior leadership teams must find the courage, create the conditions and get the support necessary to attend to their own development and transformation. This capstone examines how senior leaders in one large, diverse school system (Montgomery County, MD) took on this challenge: they invested in an exploration and improvement of their own abilities to work in teams as a lever for cultural change, better organizational performance, and a way to move an already high-performing district from good to great. My review of knowledge for action drew from research on teamwork, collaboration, and senior leadership teams, as well as literature on change leadership, coaching, and constructive-developmental and adult learning perspectives. This research helped me to develop a conceptual framework for the strategic actions that senior leaders in school systems must take to improve teamwork and collaboration. Between July 2013 and April 2014, a significant part of my role as a doctoral resident in Montgomery County Public Schools was to (1) surface conditions and factors that hinder and facilitate teamwork at the senior leadership level, (2) develop ways for senior leaders to gain a holistic understanding of the many factors that influence how they work together, and (3) engage senior leaders in the design and monitoring of their own improvement work. Principles of ethnography and design-based research illuminated my actions and those of the senior leaders. Improvements in team effectiveness and performance in this context were measured through progress in team functioning and individual senior leadership team members’ increased satisfaction with and reflection on their own learning and growth. Many challenges remain. Findings revealed factors that influence teamwork including racial and gender dynamics, thoughts about the leader, lack of trust, pride and commitment. Culminating snapshot profiles of senior leadership team members are developed to enhance the strengthening of their relationships and functioning as they continue their work. To further analyze progress, strengths, and challenges I used an organizing framework (Ganz, 2012) that integrates principles of grassroots practices, organizational effectiveness, and team development. In hopes of adding to the body of knowledge specific to teamwork and collaboration on senior leadership teams in public school systems, the capstone concludes with reflections and implications for the author, the senior leaders that constituted the unit of analysis, the organization, and the public education sector.