I believe our Leader-Follower Relationships are broken, but please realize that the school community mirrors our society.

School leadership is very often uncertain of how to, and thereby afraid to, tell people bad news. School leadership often does not enable its staff with a 'can do' attitude. I think these are symptoms of a leadership too isolated from the profound winds of change moving our society today. My positive view of those winds is that they require leaders to have the courage to be the lightning rods for decisions made, BUT be the wise helpmate of all in making those decisions. There also is required a sincerity that obliges a leader to be open with followers about their mutual self-improvement needs. When a leader possesses such benevolent wisdom, I believe people will respect and follow even when they disagree with the leader.

Two examples of school leadership I have respected over the years were:

1. A teacher in the High School Math Department sympathized with me when my son was choosing not to achieve in school and advised me that it was a problem that my son and I needed to solve,
2. The establishment of Taylor Academy for failing students when it was politically incorrect and expensive to do so.

Two examples of broken school leadership I have seen were:

1. The loss of a teacher in our system in 1996 due to administrative staff failure to interact with professional responsiveness and value the teacher's remarkable teaching skills, {I have received some rebuttal of this view since this was published in the SUN Press. This could be debated more, but I prefer to seek consensus on the broader issue in the title of this page.}
2. The previous District Curriculum Director's total lethargy, lack of teacher enablement via Curriculum Advisory Councils, and the administration's long delay in confronting the problem.

This later example reflects a still present pecking order in relationships among administrators that causes fear and connivance behaviors too often.

Good follower-ship usually only blossoms with good leadership. But I am not sure today good leadership would be enough.

Would we as a body of parents accept the reality for our kids if a "C" grade was the norm in grading (that is give up today's grade inflation practices)? Would we listen to leaders when they give us bad news such as our child being presently unteachable? Leaders fear of followers regarding this bad news has been the motivation of a several decades long practice of `age promotion' that is this year in the process of some correction. Can we talk to school employees professionally rather than emotionally?

Can we ever fully trust leaders again? Can we invest in the rebuilding effort?