Fostering Character Development Through Adaptive Leadership Free

Educators, researchers, and policymakers are actively pursuing new and innovative ideas around school improvement (Valencia, 2015). Indeed, whether through data use (Cho & Wayman, 2015), socioemotional learning techniques (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015), innovative pedagogical strategies (Duke et al., 2018) or other instructional improvements, administrators face seemingly ever-present pressures to enhance student outcomes. At the school level, improvement is a daunting task and often falls under the myriad responsibilities of a school’s principal (Hallinger, 2003). One area of improvement that often goes overlooked in lieu of competing demands is that of character development. Students are in school during a time of great personal transformation and it is important that schools take seriously the role of character development in terms of student outcomes. However, adding character development to the ever-growing list of school leader responsibilities requires careful investigation of how this work can be done successfully and in compliment with existing leadership practices.

In order to handle the range of challenges they will encounter, principals need to address many dimensions of school leadership. Indeed, by embracing an adaptive approach to school leadership, principals can promote a shared school culture, engage in collaborative decision making, and engender relational trust (Heifetz & Laurie, 1997). Studies of adaptive leadership find that this approach allows members of the organization to adapt to changes as they arise and to do so in a way that aligns with a shared vision guiding the overall work (Goldstein et al., 2011; Heifetz et al., 2009). Though adaptive leadership gets at the shortcomings of current leadership theories, gaps in the research remain. For example, as yet, there is little research that explores the use of adaptive leadership to foster character development. Given that knowledge about this critical issue would contribute to our understanding of adaptive leadership, the present study seeks to explore the potential role of adaptive leadership in promoting character development.

To understand the potential role of adaptive leadership in promoting character development in schools, it is important to first clarify how one conceptualizes character development. Education, as the process by which children become contributing members of society, requires consideration of the moral and ethical implications associated with child development. Children experience school at a time in their development when their moral character is first being formed and the program of the school cannot be disentangled from the moral education that students will experience as they develop a sense of self, navigate social relationships, and investigate the social expectations connected to their ways of being (Pietig, 1977). Early educational programs attempted to attend to a call for character development in schools by integrating curricula focused on promoting positive virtues and limiting wrongdoing (Pietig, 1977). This narrow conception assumed a view of character education as the totality of good and bad behaviors or simply the exercising of moral habits (Althof & Berkowitz, 2006). Researchers have found that attempts to view character in accordance with a traits perspective will ultimately be unsuccessful due to the situational variability of issues such as honesty (Hartshorne & May, 1928). This approach is also lacking in its emphasis on behavior with less or no regard for cognitive components of morality such as empathy, problem solving and peacemaking (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006). These programs also distinguished from content area instruction such as math, English, and history and classes such as ethics or religion, specifically designed to develop good character (Pietig, 1977).

More contemporary views of moral education take the position that character development is part of the ongoing work of the school; one which is central to the core work of the school and cannot be compartmentalized or relegated to a single class or unit (Starratt, 2012). In this view, character development is the responsibility of all educators and, in sum, one cannot educate a child without attending to their moral development. Integrating character development as part of the work of the school, requires school leaders to examine and expand their programs in potentially new ways. Writing in 1991, Starratt encouraged an ongoing dialogue among leaders around issues of ethics and morality. He posited that rather than provide a purely rationalistic environment, public organizations, such as schools, should be infused with a mission of operating in a moral way (Starratt, 1991). How then do school leaders go about the work of helping their students, staff, and community develop good character?

Starratt (2012) outlines ten elements that school leaders must address for the cultivation of an ethical school. These elements include, teachers committed to an ethical school program, a mission statement that directs the ethical goals of the school, and policies and procedures framed in an ethical manner, among others. Undergirding these elements is a theory of ethics that serves to guide this work. Three ethics provide guidance for how school administrators should view and exercise the work of the school: an ethic of critique, an ethic of justice, and an ethic of caring (Starratt, 2012). The ethic of critique asks that school leaders examine all factors of school life and not simply accept them as what has always been done. For example, an ethic of critique requires that everything from pedagogy to payroll is scrutinized. This exploration is an essential step in addressing social constructs that exist within a school that are operating in unethical ways, which may include biases, power dynamics, or hierarchies (Starratt, 1991). The ethic of justice provides a lens for ameliorating the unethical practices identified during the process of critiquing the school system. Beginning with discussion, through the ethic of justice, the school leader directs the system to ensure that all issues serve both the individual and common good. These issues may include curricular decisions, discipline policies, and sports procedures, among others (Starratt, 2012). Lastly, the ethic of caring expands on the idea of justice in that caring “honors the dignity of each person and desires to see that person enjoy a fully human life” (Starratt, 1991, p. 195). In this way, caring requires that school decisions are not focused purely on efficiency or that there is not an attempt to quantify good and harm. Rather, school leaders exercising an ethic of care will infuse all of their dealings with a regard for the people with whom they interact, be they students, staff, or parents.

The three ethics outlined by Starratt (2012) provide a framework by which school leaders can go about the work of educating their students for good character. All dimensions of school life will be critiqued for their ethical impact on the individual or group, new decisions will be made using justice as a guiding principle, and care will ensure the integrity of students, staff and the community above all else. Necessary to the application of this framework is a consideration of the system as a whole. Indeed, relationships are an integral part of building an ethical school and the literature on responsible leadership explains the important role that leaders have for developing relationships with stakeholders in their schools (Stone-Johnson, 2014). Leadership decisions by administrators, teachers, and other staff must take into account the overarching ethical agenda of the school. Additionally, for many, the work of cultivating an ethical school requires a shift in the school culture. These are substantial changes in practice that will unearth adaptive challenges—those challenges that require shifts not only in policies and procedures, but in systems and beliefs (Heifetz, 1994).

The competition between managerial and instructional demands create difficulties for principals, but adaptive leadership offers new ideas about how to address these issues. Adaptive leadership distinguishes between technical challenges, those with direct answers, and adaptive challenges that require a change in beliefs and practices (Heifetz, 1994). This distinction mirrors the responsibilities of principals between their instructional and managerial roles. Past studies applying a lens of adaptive leadership have found it helpful to distinguish between technical and adaptive challenges in order to gain insight into leaders’ responses to change (Drago-Severson & Maslin-Ostrowski, 2018). The complexity of pressures and problems principals encounter, particularly with regards to character development in schools, requires leaders to create an adaptive system, where school leaders disrupt the status quo, distribute authority to expand networks, and promote collaboration so the school system can attend to the ethics of critique, justice, and care (Starratt, 2012). In this study, I draw on the notion of leadership for adaptive change (Goldstein et al., 2011; Heifetz et al., 2009), leadership that attends to changes in people’s beliefs and habits to address challenges and develop new capacities through system transformation to explore the process by which one school principal integrates character development into her school using the ethics of critique, justice, and care.

In building an adaptive culture, leaders typically attend to two dimensions. First, adaptive change requires a shift in where power rests and thus adaptive leadership seeks to distribute power and authority throughout the system (Heifetz, 1994). When effective, adaptive leadership enhances system interactions, “replacing hierarchy and formal authority with organizational bandwidth, which draws on collective intelligence” (Heifetz et al., 2009, p. 68). As interactions shift, new networks emerge and, properly balanced, the system becomes more responsive to changes in context.

Second, leadership for adaptive change confronts another key leverage point for systems change—that of changing values that develop during system transformation and which may promote system transformation (Meadows, 1997). Engaging with the sociocultural vision shared by the system is an iterative process. The role of the leader is to guide the organization in ongoing reflection and revision of shared norms and values. Leadership “consists not of answers or assured visions but of taking action to clarify values” (Heifetz, 1994, p. 35). Other scholars discuss values as a product of the school community (Sergiovanni, 1996). From this perspective, the school should be viewed as a community of people who all have a shared interest in the values of the school, which will influence the enactment of new changes and subsequent system changes. As the adaptive system grows increasingly decentralized, shared values provide a measure of control for ongoing action (Axelrod & Cohen, 2001), so subsequent actions align with that vision as the system adapts to a changing context while adhering to its key ideals.

By attending to both dimensions outlined above, leadership for adaptive change addresses the structural and cultural needs of the system during ongoing transformation. Though the leader is charged with promoting change, they “must strike a delicate balance between having people feel the need to change and having them feel overwhelmed by change, leadership is a razor’s edge” (Heifetz & Laurie, 1997). Further, structural and cultural change will bring a measure of uncertainty to any system. Trust therefore becomes a key factor in the change process as it can promote risk taking necessary for engendering systems change. Here, trust is defined as a sense of mutual caring and respect that enables systems actors to share feelings, worries, and frustrations (Bryk et al., 1999) with a particular emphasis on the parties willingness to be vulnerable to one another (Mayer et al., 1995). Leaders cannot mandate or demand trust; it must develop organically through daily interactions (Bryk et al., 1999; Bryk & Schneider, 2004). However, leaders can facilitate trust by providing opportunities for individuals to interact around matters of substance and relevance. By connecting the framework of adaptive leadership to that of leadership for character development, a principal can frame proposed changes as critical matters in teaching and learning.

The current scholarship offers an understanding of what character development in schools entails, but less guidance on how to address challenges related to integrating character development in schools. These adaptive challenges, such as creating a common mission or managing the related instructional program, require leadership that addresses the cultural and structural needs of the school. Adaptive leadership, leadership that promotes empowerment among faculty, is the kind of leadership that leads to change characterized by shared values, distributed authority, and trust. Specifically, adaptive leadership in the context of character development would include changes in the structure and culture of the school aimed specifically at applying the ethics of critique, justice, and care. Shifts in power around character development might include establishing an instructional leadership team (ILT), increased collaboration between teachers of similar grade levels, or shared decision making between teachers and the principal regarding new curricula aimed at character development. Shifts in shared culture around character development might include a school motto or theme tied to character development, curricula developed jointly by staff and administrators, or posters and other materials visible in the hallways that reflect values shared by students and staff. While leadership for adaptive change focuses on leaders’ actions relative to particular dimensions of systems change, connecting the framework with conceptions of building an ethical school provides a lens by which to explore the potential role of adaptive leadership in fostering character development.

In order to explore the potential role of adaptive leadership in fostering character development, this longitudinal qualitative case study (Yin, 2009) followed the experiences of a Catholic elementary school principal over a 4-year period at a rural elementary school in Maryland. In this section, I describe the details of the case selection, data collection and analysis process which was guided by the following research question:

Katherine Corcoran (the names and location in this case study have been changed to preserve anonymity) volunteered to participate in this case study as part of a larger research project. The insight she provided in addressing the research question guiding this work emerged during the research process. In Katherine’s first years as a school principal, she enrolled in a leadership program at a local university, a graduate cohort engaged in the study and implementation of adaptive leadership practices in a school setting. Specifically, the program focused on scholarship and practice in the areas of distributed authority, instructional leadership and creating a common sociocultural vision—three of the program’s central curricular themes. Upon graduating from her leadership program, Katherine assumed the principalship at a rural, Catholic elementary school in the state of Maryland, Fiorella. Fiorella included students in kindergarten through Grade 8 and added a prekindergarten program in Katherine’s second year at the school. Exploring her efforts at Fiorella offers insight into those aspects of adaptive leadership that lead to change related to character development. The single case study design employed in this research allowed for the exploration of continuous processes and observation of how changes reveal themselves over time (Pettigrew, 1990; Yin, 2009).

Data were collected over 5 years, beginning in the fall of 2013. Data included interviews, observations and document collection. In total, data included 25 interviews with teachers, parents, and the principal. These semistructured interviews (Merriam, 2009) lasted approximately one hour. In order to get a sense of changes in Katherine’s leadership practices over time, participants (with the exception of parents) were interviewed multiple times. A second source of data collected in this research came from observations. Because issues of values and mission were central to the goals of this study, observations of school culture took place in visits to Morning Meetings, attending faculty and team meetings, and walking through all parts of the school. In these observations, student interactions and visual depictions of school mottos and art were witnessed, providing a sense of how the school culture was portrayed by and made visible to students. Lastly, observations of teachers’ lessons provided insight into the ways in which shifts in power and a shared school culture impacted instruction. A final source of data came from documents, including lesson plans, mission statements, meeting agendas, and the strategic plan. The documents selected were chosen for their relevance to issues of school leadership and school culture. These data and data from interviews and observations were collected and analyzed to reveal links to the overarching research question.

Data from interviews, observations and document collection were used to provide information about the potential role of adaptive leadership in fostering character development. Data analysis began by open coding of interviews (Glaser & Strauss, 2009). These initial codes included, school culture, trust, distributed leadership, and instructional leadership. Using these codes, I generated themes from the participants’ interviews and then, building on these understandings, I conducted a second round of coding to generate within-case themes. Emergent themes were identified using the constant comparative method to locate patterns between sites (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). I used memoing to keep a record of themes and patterns as they emerged in the coding process (Charmaz, 2006) and to reflect upon the research process. The software application, MAXQDA (2018) was used to enter and code data.

To explore the potential role of adaptive leadership in fostering a school environment that promotes character development, this section reports findings from the 5-year study of Principal Katherine Corcoran. Katherine’s approach to leadership for adaptive change at Fiorella can be explored along two dimensions—distributing control and authority and generating a shared sociocultural vision in the interest of promoting character development. I first describe how Katherine distributed authority at Fiorella by incorporating both individuals and groups into the decision-making process, using the lens of ethics of critique, justice, and care.

Shifts in Structure at Fiorella. Katherine approached network change at Fiorella incrementally. In Katherine’s first year at Fiorella she established individual relationships with teachers, learning about their roles and strengths within the system. This approach can be seen in Katherine’s relationship with Elizabeth, the fourth-grade math teacher. As their relationship developed over the first year, Elizabeth, a natural introvert, became more confident participating in meetings and sharing ideas, exemplified when Katherine sought input and judgment in selecting a new religion textbook:

Rather than attempt large scale change to the networks at Fiorella, in the first year of her principalship, Katherine left most existing structures in place and encouraged individuals to lend their ideas to decision making, generating a sense of individual empowerment and inclusion rather than attempting a more ambitious, committee-based approach to change. With the exception of setting a meeting schedule and establishing agendas for faculty and advisory board meetings, few other systemwide changes were established. Katherine focused on individual rather than systemic relationships with teachers, getting to know teachers, sharing ideas, and seeking their input on varied matters—in essence, establishing a sense of relational trust that would serve as a foundation for more substantive change in ensuing years.

Katherine’s second year at Fiorella marked the start of her building a decentralized network whereby she began tentatively distributing authority, creating the possibility of developing leadership capacity in others. Teachers were no longer simply lending ideas to Katherine, the solitary agent in the decision-making process; rather, they were becoming active participants in decision making. She created committees around different school priorities such as safety and technology, characterized by pockets of information that led to some, but limited, sharing of information. Though each committee had a chair, Katherine’s presence at meetings signaled she was the true leader and therefore responsible for additional work. Accordingly, Katherine strategized ways to distribute authority through a committee structure, lessening her workload and ideally empowering teachers in the process:

Despite some new structures that reflected distributed authority at Fiorella, Katherine avoided establishing an ILT, concerned that the process of selecting certain teachers for the committee could alienate others:

Somewhat undecided, Katherine ultimately chose not to create an ILT in year two, instead organizing staff into committees based on archdiocese accreditation areas such as technology and bullying. By assigning all staff to specific committees, Katherine avoided conflict. Katherine’s second year of distributed authority at Fiorella saw her begin to expand authority to faculty while remaining careful of how power was distributed, and to whom.

In year three and four, Katherine continued to introduce structural innovations at Fiorella. During this time, the school community, under Katherine’s guidance, began drafting a 3-year strategic plan focused on four topics: operational vitality, mission and identity, governance and leadership, and academic excellence—each representing separate committees comprising parents, teachers and staff and clergy. Katherine identified teachers to sit on the committees and lend their insight to the strategic planning process. While Katherine played an important role in the planning process, after committees were formed they operated independently. Katherine only joined the governance and leadership committee, giving other committees freedom to express their ideas unencumbered by her presence.

In addition to participating on strategic plan committees, teachers had opportunities to assume leadership positions in other parts of school life, such as “grade level leaders” and a newly formed ILT which was comprised of teacher volunteers. By this time Katherine was no longer the expected sole authority at Fiorella, but this transition took time. Whereas in her first year at Fiorella Katherine communicated ideas and changes directly with staff members at faculty meetings, by her fourth year, Katherine had learned which teachers to trust to take on positions of authority. A system was in place in which teachers had power and could work to address needs and challenges that arose. Indeed, Katherine’s progress in distributing authority at Fiorella closely tied to her work establishing a shared vision and culture tied directly to the promotion of character development.

Sociocultural Vision for Fiorella. As Katherine sought to establish a system of distributed authority throughout Fiorella, a common school vision and culture emerged. Katherine built upon the traditional Catholic school values of faith, knowledge and service, and infused the school culture with elements specific to her life and vision for the school. Central to her approach was yearly “themes” in which she communicated an idea that was then, to certain degrees, infused into daily life at Fiorella. Some teachers who embraced this practice made changes to their curriculum and how they interacted with students. This included service projects and public recognition for positive behavior. The integration of the themes followed a similar progression to decentralizing authority in the school—at first, Katherine introduced the theme and directed teachers in how to implement it into school culture. Over time, while she continued generating themes, grade level groups decided how to shape their curriculum and projects around that theme. The themes served as a common vision for teachers and students at Fiorella, as well as parents. In her first year at Fiorella, Katherine presented the theme “journey” as a way of introducing herself to the school community, as explained by a third-grade teacher:

The journey theme was a point of entry between Fiorella and Katherine as their new leader. They had a common platform to share experiences and expectations. As Katherine came to know students, staff and parents, she also sought to build trusting relationships within her new community. By attending community and school events, Katherine situated herself as a member of the community and demonstrated sincerity and reliability to her staff. Building trust, in turn, helped Katherine shape a shared school culture infused with her themes and values.

In Katherine’s second year at Fiorella, the theme “peace maker” served as a catalyst for conversations about positive character, collaboration and support for fellow students. At the end of each quarter, a student was chosen to receive a peace maker award in recognition of actions they did to bring peace to the school and their classmates. Contributing to the theme, Katherine invited a famous author to visit the school at the end of the year to meet students and discuss the importance of peace in one’s relationships with others. The author has written books about the importance of peace, kindness and compassion for those with special needs. This was a timely visit as the school recently enrolled special needs students for the first time. To serve the new student population, Katherine contracted with a local company to provide aides for the students and in doing so further expanded and decentralized Fiorella networks. Connections to outside ideas and influences strengthened the school’s sociocultural vision and infused the staff with new manifestations of their cultural vision. The second grade teacher observed:

The peace maker theme became pervasive in school activities, empowering teachers with new foci for curriculum integration while enriching the sense of caring embodied in the school community. The fourth grade teacher reported:

The themes Katherine introduced transcended the classroom and school environment. Parents are well aware of the culture at Fiorella and students share their progress at home. One parent of third- and fourth-grade students explained how her children spoke about peace at home:

Fiorella teachers appreciated the power of these themes to connect instruction to Catholic values and the school culture while promoting a sense of school community. As one teacher noted:

As Katherine considered what the theme would be for her third year at Fiorella, she wanted to select something that would facilitate a connection to the nearby naval base, so students could participate in service projects on the base and learn from experts working there. She spoke to the school’s pastor to get insight into his ideas. Together, they developed a theme that built upon Catholic values and capitalized on available network connections, such as the environmental education staff on the base. Katherine described the process and its link to the school vision:

Katherine disrupted the status quo at Fiorella by distributing power and authority and making cultural change a centerpiece to their efforts—using values and beliefs to mobilize faculty and gain commitment to common priorities. Beyond traditional Catholic school values she communicated her unique vision for developing a school identity. With this understanding of Katherine’s impact on Fiorella, we turn now to a discussion of these changes to reveal deeper insights into the role of adaptive leadership on promoting character development.

Katherine’s experiences at Fiorella offers an understanding of the potential role of adaptive leadership in character development. Specifically, I was looking to determine if structural and cultural changes at the schools had an impact on character development. In response to the research question guiding this study (In embracing a commitment to adaptive leadership, how did the principal foster a shared school culture and leverage distributed authority to promote character development among students, staff, and families?), Katherine’s experiences revealed that she introduced change to the distribution of authority and shared culture at Fiorella. In sum, the changes Katherine introduced included the formation of teacher leadership teams, committees that gave some decision-making authority to parents and teachers, and yearly themes that reinforced a shared culture at the school. The findings revealed specific changes to school life at Fiorella that centered on character development. Building upon these findings, I turn now to a discussion of what these outcomes suggest about the use of adaptive leadership practices to promote character development.

Katherine approached both dimensions of adaptive leadership, distributing authority and developing a common culture, through the ethics of critique, justice, and care (Starratt, 2012) to promote character development at Fiorella among staff, students, and parents. The process of distributing authority revealed that Katherine took time to build trust as she went through the process of critiquing the school procedures, policies, and environment. She gained a sense of which teachers she could trust and rely on and which priorities she wanted to give her attention. Over time, as she began to share authority with teachers, she did so through the ethics of justice and care exemplified when she was careful in determining how systems of authority should be crafted. For example, in creating the ILT, she considered the feelings and equity of opportunity for all teachers. The process of distributing authority in Fiorella supported the influence of the yearly themes as teachers began to communicate more regularly and take on more responsibilities as teacher leaders.

Katherine’s use of yearly themes generated a common school culture and the themes permeated many aspects of school life. Her first theme, journey, served as a means of introducing herself to the school and offered a platform for engaging in the process of critique. She framed herself and Fiorella as learners along a continuum and she encouraged others and herself to reflect on the past and path forward, not accepting previous practices without scrutiny. Her later themes promoted the development of curricula, projects, and events that were framed in the ethics of justice and care. Peace maker and “created to care” generated common expectations for the enactment of ethical practices and behavior while considering the dignity and integrity of the individual. For example, the peace maker theme opened a dialogue within Fiorella about what a peace maker is. As students were nominated by their teachers, individuals, classes, and the whole school reflected on what elements of character were being recognized.

Lastly, it is important to take note of the ways in which the Catholic school context afforded Katherine different opportunities to act on school culture that may not be available to leaders of public schools. The school community at Fiorella was very receptive to language around common religious themes like peace and care. As she introduced her yearly themes, the teachers reported being very comfortable with the new addition, considering the themes as augmenting the Catholic values that already existed in the school. However, the themes were quite unique in the sense that it was the first time that the school’s values were explicitly integrated into the curriculum among much of the school in a comprehensive way. The permeation of the themes was facilitated by Katherine’s efforts at distributing authority. In this way, cultural and structural change were strengthened by one another.

This case revealed many ways in which leadership for adaptive change can impact a school system, particularly with regards to character development. Through structural and cultural changes at Fiorella, staff experienced new networks of distributed authority and an evolving shared vision. Teachers were better able to communicate through the use of the ILT and a common language built on shared school culture. These improvements, in turn, led to improved alignment of the curriculum focused on values that were reflected in lesson plans and hands on student experiences. The behaviors and abilities of students also experienced a marked shift under Katherine’s leadership. For example, students in need of special education services had new access to paraprofessionals in the classroom that could help facilitate individualized learning needs. The special needs population at Fiorella grew in number under Katherine’s leadership because those services, not always offered in a private school setting, were available at Fiorella. The values promoted among the staff were mirrored by the students. In hallways and classrooms, it was common to see student recognition of good deeds which were distributed by staff members daily and summarized in weekly assemblies to further encourage character development.

Over the course of this study, Katherine critiqued the ethical practices of the school and introduced themes by which students and staff were able to engage in the process of character development through a lens of justice and care (Starratt, 2012). She cultivated leadership skills in teachers who became active in changes related to the strategic plan that directly impacted student learning. Among these changes were the adoption of new 1:1 devices, the hiring of a new science lab teacher and expansion of prekindergarten—all of which were directed through committee consensus, rather than instituted by Katherine herself. The expansion of new networks at Fiorella was essential to the system’s ability to respond to consequent challenges (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Additionally, a shared sociocultural vision at Fiorella provided a common set of beliefs and values by which staff could generate trust and enhance interactions. The themes that guided Katherine’s approach to school culture took on a curricular nature as they were infused in teachers’ and students’ instructional experiences. Katherine’s success in attending to these dimensions of adaptive leadership suggest Fiorella is a better school for Katherine’s focus on character development. Perhaps in closing, it is best to let a teacher from Fiorella have the final say—Emily, the third grade teacher, summarized her time under Katherine’s leadership as a period of profound growth for both herself and Fiorella: