School Leadership Preparation and Technology Implementation: Ensure Successful Change Processes Through Transformative Mind Shifts

Abstract

Leadership is changing and is now more commonly defined as a shared, collaborative responsibility rather than an individual one. Preparing leaders in the 21st Century, will require a team effort. Those responsible for preparing new leaders will need to consider leader behavior along with new technologies and research based best practices to ensure that preparation programs are in tune with the world as it is now. Mind shifts in the way leaders perceive issues and problems will be essential to success. This issue is of particular interest to principal preparation programs which must focus on developing effective school leaders. One way to begin the process of change will be to redefine popular conceptions of 21st Century leadership. Aspiring leaders and learners will need to be exposed to new ideas, attitudes, and approaches to work—making these shifts will also be required to transition aspiring leaders from teaching to leading. School leaders, and school principals, after teachers, have the most impact on student learning in their schools. However, it is not clear that principals are prepared to make decisions about what works best for staff and students in today’s schools, new requirements and new accountability measures are in place, and many principal preparation programs have not changed to reflect what is now needed. In this digital age, being a leader for schools requires adequate preparation, experience, and good decision making: problem solving and technology leadership. An aspiring leader needs to make transformational mind shifts in their approach to leading. Technology changes also raise the bar for school leaders; the stakes are usually higher because of the anticipation around the likely impact of new ideas and newly adopted technologies. The school leader, to be effective, must also shift—their thinking, changing a focus from what happened, the events—to how they respond to what is happening now; from reacting to responding, from contracting to interacting. The way the new leader makes this mind shift and behavior transition; how the leader makes changes becomes a personal choice and responsibility. This article discusses the mind shifts necessary for the new leader to make, first in thought, and later in action changes in his or her personal behavior and awareness, in order to effectively and successfully manage and lead the change process to succeed in today’s school environment.