Rising Leaders’ Guide to Change and Innovation: Challenges to Tradition | CACE | The Center for the Advancement of Christian Education

A colleague at a close-by school took part in an all-hands-on-deck expert development day to talk about how schools might become more innovative. As a groundswell of excitement was developing, someone lastly addressed the elephant in the space: “If we really prefer to create modification and we earnestly desire our school to be more innovative, should not we alter our school slogan?” Murmurs in the space grew in volume. Eventually, a senior administrator vocalized, “We can not sacrifice our school’s core identity for the sake of innovation. We need to continue to secure the tradition.”

Numerous leaders are driven by the desire to protect the custom. The Greek thinker Heraclitus asserted an opposing mantra nearly 2,500 years ago: Change is the Only Continuous.Thinking about the timeline, the paradox of these mantras is rather complicated. Regrettably, numerous leaders’ sensations about change are yet one more location of polarization. Leaders tend to be either change-resistant or change-addicts, and both methods can trigger waves.

A Theology of Development

Some Christian leaders may utilize the Bible to justify digging in their heels. Sadly, many in Christian education have experienced cringe-worthy minutes when unproven theology was weaponized to advance a leader’s agenda or lack thereof. For instance, one may assert that “God is the exact same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so we must be too!” There are severe repercussions when leaders utilize unwarranted theology to protect human-made traditions, an argument that typically leaves innovation and modification as victims in the wake of its damage.

Whereas Christian schools should safeguard the biblical traditions they love, they should also be cognizant that innovation and change are woven throughout the material of scripture, beginning with the development story and traveling throughout scripture all the way to Revelation 21:5: “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything brand-new!'” If Christian school leaders believe mankind was made in the image of God, then consequentially, they too need to accept and commemorate innovation since God is the supreme innovator and leader of change.

Barriers to Modification

Research on modification management is a blossoming field in academic community. Ironically, the education sector might be the most delayed at carrying out reliable change management methods and systems, but this pandemic has actually definitely pressed us along the modification course.

What keeps modification from occurring in the school setting? Is it the disruption of the status quo? A threat to the faculty’s vested interests in their tasks? Or an upset to the recognized ways of doing things? Lack of energy? Resources? Or is it a leader’s inadequacies? Likely there is a cacophony of barriers to change at each of our schools, making it difficult to isolate factors.

What Peter F. Drucker argued in his timeless book The Practice of Management (1954) is still true: a considerable impediment to organizational growth is supervisors’ failure to adjust their attitudes and habits as rapidly as their organizations need. Even when leaders intellectually understand the need for innovation in the way they run, they sometimes lack the mental or psychological capacity to implement modification. Sometimes the most significant barrier to alter is a leader’s deficiencies.

Worry of the Unknown

The greatest enemy of development for numerous school leaders is the fear of the unidentified. What if this concept does not work? What if this change upsets essential stakeholders in our community? What if this is not the best time?

Exist hold-outs or, even worse yet, silent naysayers to the proposed modifications? Was the appropriate time taken to develop buy-in? Are all changes originating from the top down? Or is the school feedback friendly, a location where students, faculty, and even non-board-member parents are welcomed and motivated to contribute ideas that lead to genuine changes?

Some but not all resistors can be won over by interacting a clear vision, leveraging the assistance of early adopters and influencers on school, and discussing to professors and students how the changes will produce worth for them. Still no traction? The next course of action is to create short-term wins so that detractors begin to see the value in the originality or way of doing things.

Series Summary

This eight-part series of posts will provide a roadmap to leading modification and cultivating innovation within Christian schools.

In this series, research will be greatly referenced because the findings develop such unique worth within this field that they must be shared with others. John Kotter’s eight-step model for leading modification is the most mentioned and referenced of all change models. When it concerns change, Kotter calls leaders to develop a sense of seriousness, develop and communicate a vision for change, have an effective coalition, eliminate challenges, create short-term wins, focus on the need for constant improvement, and institutionalise the carried out changes. The forthcoming posts will illuminate these actions as fundamental elements for effectively implementing modification in Christian schools.

Schools take fantastic threats when they quash innovation. To go nowhere is to go in reverse. Naturally, these advances are not produced their own sake; the goal of change ought to always be to better serve students, families, faculty, and staff. Lead and carry out modification with personal conviction, the assistance of a strong group, and a clear assisting vision. Keep in mind that God is the best innovator of all.

This is the very first installment in the Rising Leaders’ Guide to Change and Innovation. Register for the CACE newsletter to be notified when upcoming pieces are published.