Write an essay on Beyond School Improvement, the Journey to Innovative Leadersship?
A new thinking is holding the world within its grip. Improvement to excel and the innovation in various sector is a continuous process that is being adopted by leader and marketers all over the world. Everyone strives to succeed and beat down the competitions. There is an inherent potentiality to be a leader in almost every individual who wants to achieve something in life. the book “Beyond School Improvement: The Journey to innovative Leadership: by Robert Davidovich is a unique discussion on the factor that Leadership ability is the main criteria that everyone wants to achieve and Schools must strive in providing the support and nurturing in providing the world full of leaders (Educationalleaders.govt.nz, 2015).
The points that the book have gone through are the Changing world of Schools and the learning process. It discusses the need for improvement, the trends and why improvement in today’s world is a must. The second chapter discusses the fact that improvement without innovation is not much of use. There is a lot of difference between the two and the schools and its leadership must take initiatives in order achieve innovation along with improvement. The book goes on to study case studies of schools which show that innovation is necessary for improvement and leadership is an integral part of it (Davidovich, n.d.).
The Schools leadership must endeavor to take part in activities that will take the learning process beyond the fixed curriculum. A school must not be fixated on the limited guidelines and education system and must take approaches which will enhance the students to face the bigger challenges of future and prepare for it. Thus the next phase of the book discusses about the attributes of leadership and how courage can be developed to take a step forward.
Finally the book discusses how to practice the journey of innovative leadership for improvement beyond the limit. This requires embracing the dissonance, creating a context for growth and learning, change the perception, brainstorm on ideas and make them collide and finally innovate the way to lead. The author as an educator has a previous experience in leadership for running schools. The challenges faced by him and his colleagues has lead him to write a book on the activity that must be undertaken for schools around the world that will improve the learning scope and help the students to excel in the future (Harris & Muijs, 2005).
This book is brief study of improvement in leadership that is to be found through innovation in the School’s learning process. The biggest criticism that one can find after reading the book is that the author says innovation is far more superior to improvement and the two factors are very much different from each other. According to him improvement is a byproduct to problem solution and does not necessarily give rise to innovation; which is the common belief. The author feels that innovation is a separate process of thinking something new and applying it organizing new dimensions to perform and new operating paradigms (Lambert, 2003).
The author has this rigid idea that continuous improvement can turn into innovation only when the leaders change the balance in the system and find new data and ways which will create chaos in the system will innovation occur. The author believes in dissonance being the path in bringing innovation to the process. It is a very close minded and hypercritic view the author has adopted as such is not always the case (Asq.org, 2015).
Innovation as the word suggests means to inculcate a new idea. Improvement is the process to be better than the past. It is logical that the past is old and any kind of improvement is introducing something new even if it’s a minute part in the system and hence it is innovation even for a little bit. It sort of part of the process that improvement can only be achieved when there is innovation concerned which is gearing up the process. The two processes are intertwined and help each other in achieving the goals (Asq.org, 2015).
There is an added advantage to improvement through innovation as innovation is not always up to the mark or beneficial. A school leadership might innovate a new attribute for the education process. This innovation might not at all be that path breaking or useful as expected. There might be side effects and issues relating to the innovation which might hamper the students learning process or pressurize them. It is increasingly becoming an issue that institutions are finding new ways to pressurize the students to take competitive actions. This is leading to stress and health issues. Hence it’s not necessarily superior to improvement. The innovation has to be positive in every way and in every facet to consider it as an improvement worth noticing (Gersten & Riis, 2002).
Another issue is the factor that innovation and improvement is not necessarily the ultimate criteria for inducing growth. The author states that for surviving in the bigger world and to prepare for the future innovation is a must. Dragging the previous topic, it is not healthy to always encourage competition and innovation to succeed. Everyone is not born to be a leader. If everyone is a leader there would be chaos and conflict of ideas however newness these ideas bring. The world will definitely reach a saturation point and people will be crazed to find new ideas that will disrupt the natural harmony. The schools hence should pay more attention to improving character and the equilibrium that forcing the lot into bringing innovations (Made in Washington, 2011).
The author has a point when he discussed the fact that there is need for change and innovation within oneself to create a dynamic educational system. These innovations in classroom and organization would bring improvement in the system. It is in this point that the author almost contradicts himself supporting the view that improvement is process that is continuous in bringing innovation.
Finally the last argument that could be brought against the subject is that attributes for innovation is considered amplification and engagement. Amplification mans to grow and most of the time it is synonymous to improvement. A thing which grows is improving at the same time hence if innovation is occurring it is due to the engagement of new ideas which is growing. Amplification is thus more a characteristic of improvement than innovation. It is thus wrong to separate the two and brand innovation as superior (Theinnovationandstrategyblog.com, 2013).
It is thus proved that innovation and improvement go hand in hand when institutional leaders are trying to take a different approach in growing their educational system. The institutes should teach and converse with the students on the problems and issues and but not create a jumble of theories and ideas because that might completely obstruct the growth process leading to dilemmas and doubts and an increasing pressure to compete. Nevertheless the author is right in his words that innovation and improvement should be the new curriculum of development in creating a dynamic future (Ssireview.org, 2015).
The criticism is hence not on the whole topic but the fact of innovation being superior. It is not a competition to excel as the author suggests somewhere but an endeavor to improve oneself for the future not necessarily in the leadership scenario but in a wholesome manner so that the balance is intact and there is always scope for growth. Improving the society and individual growth are far more potent than the overall improvisation. Improvisation is thus the word that must be used by the leadership when they are vying for growth beyond the limit of the school’s curriculum.
References
Asq.org,. (2015). From Continuous Improvement to Continuous Innovation – ASQ. Retrieved 20 June 2015, from https://asq.org/pub/qmj/past/vol8_issue4/cole.html
Asq.org,. (2015). What is Innovation? Improvement vs. Innovation | ASQ. Retrieved 20 June 2015, from https://asq.org/learn-about-quality/innovation/
Davidovich, R. Beyond school improvement.
Educationalleaders.govt.nz,. (2015). Future schools and innovation / Leading change / Home – Educational Leaders. Retrieved 20 June 2015, from https://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leading-change/Future-schools-and-innovation
Gersten, F., & Riis, J. (2002). Continuous improvement and innovation. Bradford, England: Emerald Group Pub.
Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Lambert, L. (2003). Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Made in Washington,. (2011). Applying Continuous Improvement through Innovation in Everything You Do is the Key to Success. Retrieved 20 June 2015, from https://madeinwashington.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/applying-continuous-improvement-through-innovation-in-everything-you-do-is-the-key-to-success/
Ssireview.org,. (2015). The Missing Link in School Reform (SSIR). Retrieved 20 June 2015, from https://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_missing_link_in_school_reform
Theinnovationandstrategyblog.com,. (2013). “Improving processes through innovation can boost productivity by 25%” says Nestor Gismondi (2/2) | The Innovation and Strategy Blog. Retrieved 20 June 2015, from https://theinnovationandstrategyblog.com/2013/08/improving-processes-innovation-boost-productivity-25-nestor-gismondi-22/
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