It would make sound sense for our NT schools to close to students (other than those of essential service workers) this Friday, after 9 weeks of an 11 week term. Attendance i I s desultory and the community confused by the present situation. For week 10 to be the final week of term, one during which teachers prepare materials for distance learning would be an eminently sensible approach. And term two should definitely start as one of distance/online learning rather than physical attendance in classrooms.

As it stands, schools will be open in week 10 and closed to students in week 11.

There needs to be a firming Australian position on schools being opened or closed and when and what services will be offered online. The variations from state and territory to state and territory is, at this point in time, very confusing.

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There is NO WAY KNOWN that Territorians who have had contact with the coronavirus through association with those on ships or in touring parties, should be allowed to fly home on commercial airline flights. At the very least their contagion should require medical evacuation to the NT. All those in the NT with COVIG-19 have arrived as regular passengers. That is totally wrong and should not be condoned by authorities.

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There is a massive truancy problem in NT Schools, particularly in remote areas. Whether schools are open or closed is immaterial to these hundreds of non-attenders because their behaviours of educational avoidance will not be affected.

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PLAY THE BALL, NOT THE MAN

Throughout my time as an educator and writer (more recently a Linked In contributor and blogger) I have tried very hard to focus on issues and not directly on people who may be involved with process. It is the issue that is important rather than direct focus on people who may be involved.

In respect of the coronavirus and its impact upon Australia and Australians, I find it hard to remain within that frame of comment.

The issues surrounding COVID-19 are gripping Australia and indeed the world. To their credit, Australian Governments at every level are mounting realistic campaigns of response to this contagion. However, their intentions and efforts have been and are being thwarted by people of all ages who, from the onset of the virus, have chosen courses of action that pose a threat for themselves and for others. AND THEY DON’T CARE UNTIL THE PROVERBIAL HITS THE FAN: WHEN THAT HAPPENS THEY CRY OFF POOR AND WANT THE GOVERNMENT(S) TO BAIL THEM OUT OF THEIR SELF CREATED PREDICAMENTS.

The examples of stupidly, crass, uncaring selfishness and flagrant disregard for others (as well as themselves) are epitomised in any number of examples of selfish, stupid (and more recently illegal) behaviour.

I share just a few.

• The hundreds and indeed thousands of Australians who have taken passage on cruise ships and gone cruising after the virus broke out and people became aware of its infectious potential and spread.

• The hundreds and indeed thousands of Australians who have left by air on overseas holidays after the announcement of this deadly virus became known.

• The selfishness of travel companies, especially those connected with cruising, who appealed to people to sail into danger because of special travel deals being offered.

• The idiocy and crass stupidity of people who, with the virus closing in and states/territories limiting travel nevertheless elected to travel interstate on holiday and now find themselves well and truly flummoxed by imposed travel restrictions.

• The arrant disregard for the welfare of others by people who have taken commercial plane flights to their home state and territories while knowing or suspecting they were infected with the virus

• The vile misconduct of people who have deliberated violated the terms of isolation after having been placed into self-quarantine because of their association with the virus.

• The wickedness of those who are required to self isolate, but who have given false addresses about their physical location to authorities.

• The crass stupidity of people who were happy to go to bridge parties, clubs, pubs, the beach and other places once social distancing provisions had come into place.

• The short sightedness of officials who allowed the unchecked disembarkation of ‘Ruby Princess’ passengers. This after being told by staff on the ship that there were no issues. (Post the virus, this story and similar releases suggesting that passengers on ships are fine when they are not, should be fully investigated with legal consequences for any non disclosure being an option).

• The greed and selfishness manifest by a minority of people (but a minority of many hundreds) who stripped and continue to strip shelves bare of essential products.

• The wrongfulness of those who left cities in vehicles to strip stores in nearby towns of essentials needed by locals.

This is not a list exhausted of examples illustrating wrong doing. It demonstrates how much harder it is for authorities to manage major health and economic issues when confronted with issues of this nature.

When “I” comes before and replaces “we” to the extent that has occurred, a picture of selfishness and self-centredness emerges; one that distorts the efforts and intentions of authorities and one that shows how little too many care about our Australian community as a whole.

POINTS TO PONDER

Educationally, I think 2020 will become a ‘marking of time’ year at primary, secondary and tertiary level. Whatever can be cobbled together to support a maintenance of some study attitude will be useful, but that will be about as far as it goes. For students to be a year older and more mature in the ways of life when returning to reopened schools and universities in 2021 may not be a bad thing. 2020 looks like being a global gap year.

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If schools are closed provision will have to be made for the children of doctors, nurses, medical support staff and child care workers. and so on. Without this support there will be a major drop off in medical and related professional staff able to go to work. This surely means some schools will have to be partially opened to provide for this care.

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The COVID-19 virus is a threat to schools and schooling. It is the most major threat to education since the introduction of NAPLAN testing in 2008. This virus adds to the annual mental threat and worry NAPLAN poses to students, teachers and school leaders. The need for resilience is being sorely tested.

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It is beginning to appear that the Australia-wide NAPLAN testing program due in May, could well be disrupted by the impacts of COVIG-19 on education. This might be a good time to consider the discontinuation of a phyrric and increasingly irrelevant testing program. NAPLAN has become an ingrained annual habit that defocuses schools, staff and students from relevant, meaningful teaching and learning

POINTS TO PONDER

Educationally, I think 2020 will become a ‘marking of time’ year at primary, secondary and tertiary level. Whatever can be cobbled together to support a maintenance of some study attitude will be useful, but that will be about as far as it goes. For students to be a year older and more mature in the ways of life when returning to reopened schools and universities in 2021 may not be a bad thing. 2020 looks like being a global gap year.

—-

If schools are closed provision will have to be made for the children of doctors, nurses, medical support staff and child care workers. and so on. Without this support there will be a major drop off in medical and related professional staff able to go to work. This surely means some schools will have to be partially opened to provide for this care.

—-

The COVID-19 virus is a threat to schools and schooling. It is the most major threat to education since the introduction of NAPLAN testing in 2008. This virus adds to the annual mental threat and worry NAPLAN poses to students, teachers and school leaders. The need for resilience is being sorely tested.

—-

It is beginning to appear that the Australia-wide NAPLAN testing program due in May, could well be disrupted by the impacts of COVIG-19 on education. This might be a good time to consider the discontinuation of a phyrric and increasingly irrelevant testing program. NAPLAN has become an ingrained annual habit that defocuses schools, staff and students from relevant, meaningful teaching and learning

COVID-19, which had its birthplace in the wild meat markets of Wuhan in late November and early December, now blankets the world with its insidious and medically challenging manifestations.

Australian Federal State and Territory Government ineptitude and slow reactive response along with the dismissive and non-conforming behaviour of many who should be isolating means this virus is upon us at a rate of knots. Exponential spread is upon us and there will be no flattening of the infection curve.

I have no empathy for those who went cruising after the ‘Diamond Princess’ situation because anyone with a grain of common sense would know that onboard ship infections would reduplicate. And allowing international ships in to dock after the embargo was called is misplaced empathy and a misjudgement by Scott Morrison and his advisers.

Nor do I have sympathy (but plenty of latent anger) for those who took off on overseas holidays after the Chinese-Wuhan Virus and its spread became known to those with half a grain of world awareness. Phyrric bravado and attitudes of “it won’t get me” don’t cut the mustard but predicate the behaviour of fools. When outcomes that could have been preventable become really rough, these people expect the Australian Government will come to their rescue and bail them out.

Sadly, they are right for that is exactly what the government does. They spend up big bringing the now seriously minded ones home to infect the rest of us.

People being flown back to home states and territories, when coming into Australia from suspect situations should be flown on dedicated charter flights, NOT on commercial airlines.

How many of the passengers on the two flights that brought infected people from interstate to the Northern Territory will succumb to this evil pathogen. Fully infections the three would have been because they had no sooner lobbed in Darwin that they were declared coronavirus positive: In other words, authorities (and they themselves) would have known of their contagion before they boarded commercial flights.

Thanks to non-caring people and to reluctant authorities who are prepared to play reactive catch-up laced with misplaced empathy, we are going to really catch this contagion big time.

By the end of March our 1,030 infections as of today’s date (21 March) will be up to if not over the 5,000 mark.

Maybe COVID-19 is one of the seven last of the world’s plagues described in the New Testament book of Revelation.

Note: I am publishing this on my ‘Education a Life Force’ site because COVID-19 impacts every aspect of life and has major implications for educational emphasis and outcomes.

There has been a significant change in the setting of funding priorities for schools during the past ten years.

Prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008, it was extraordinarily difficult to attract money for school capital works programs. Principals and school councils were often frustrated by the delays in gaining initial approval. Generally works were included in treasury’s forward estimates.

In some cases, approved works remained in abeyance for so long, they were re-announced as new initiatives before gaining final funding approval.

Minor New Works programs for infrastructure projects up to $250,000 were similarly queued for lengthy periods of time.

The GFC consigned this scenario to history. In order to stimulate building and construction, the Federal Government created the Building Education Revolution (BER). Many billions of dollars were released to state and territory educational systems. ‘Build, build build, like there is no tomorrow’ became the order of the day. Along with all educational authorities, the NT Education Department was overwhelmed with BER money.Funds were allocated for major construction in every Northern Territory school.

A BER downside was the prescription placed on the use of money. Buildings had to be for science laboratories, school libraries, classrooms, assembly halls and physical facilities. When particular schools had higher priorities they were discounted. Timelines attached to the program required projects to be completed and funds expended by specific dates. This meant that building and construction programs had to be undertaken during term time disrupting school programs, in some cases for weeks on end.

Although the BER is now history, there has been a significant shift in funding priorities for NT schools. Compared with pre BER days, it seems that limitations on capital and minor new works funding have been relaxed.

Government tenders in the NT News each Wednesday confirms that money is being allocated for playground equipment, shade structures, irrigation upgrades and other works that were rarely funded in past times.

Previously, it had been up to school communities to fundraise for these ventures.

It is a worry that major funding for schools seems to be based on the fact that projects must support the building, construction, and infrastructure industry. There is a need for funding to recognise and support teaching and learning programs in classrooms. The ‘heart’ of the school is the teaching/learning interface. Buildings and facilities are necessary but should not be prioritised to the detriment of core learning needs.

Funding balance is important. While facilities are necessary, the support of students through classroom programs must not be compromised.

Note: This paper is based on the Northern Territory but there are parallels around the rest of our country.

STORY TELLING

At the risk of sounding too old fashioned, I extol the virtues of story telling. These days, with the advent and use of smart-boards and connecting devices, teachers often use audio-visual technology when it comes to story telling and story readings. The possible reluctance that teachers may feel about telling stories to children is not new. When I was a primary school student in the 1950’s, we used to have ‘Junior Listener’ stories broadcast to us by radio. For half an hour or so we would sit at our desks in rural Western Australia and listen to the story of the week being read to us by a presenter in Perth. Memory fades with time but I cannot remember our teachers being much into story telling. We were read to from time to time. However in those days, books were not attractively presented or full of colourful illustrations to be shared with children.

Teachers should not feel reluctant about telling or reading stories to children. Sadly, the skill of story telling is becoming a lost art. I always gained great satisfaction from being able to share stories with students from Transition to Year Seven. I believe that teachers of older students can fashion their delivery of material in a way that transmits it to students in story form. Story provided ‘setting’ and helps place the context of message into a feasible environment. It helps students understand the application of theoretical contexts.

To tell stories with and to children is to engage with them in a primary conversational context. Stories told with animation and conviction, with supporting gesture and eye contact, engage children and switch them on in a way that draws them close to the message being conveyed.

Advantages

Some of the positives of story telling are as follows:

* The quality, meaning and context of language, word usage and meaning can be followed up by discussion during ‘conversational pauses’ within the story or at its end when the story is being reviewed.

* Questioning to test listening helps to build the notions of concentration and listening. To have ‘mini quizzes’ where there is some sort of contestation build within the group (for instance, girls versus boys, contest between class groups and so on) adds to student focus and engagement. This strategy discourages students ‘switching off’ and mentally wandering off into the distance.

* Having students work on ‘prediction. and ‘forecast’ by sharing their thoughts about where the story will head and how it will conclude can be an interesting and testing strategy. This approach helps develop the skills of logic and reasoning within thinking.

* Language study is enhanced. Asking children the meanings of words and words within context is an example. Similes and antonyms can be developed as a part word studies. The possibilities are endless.

* Some texts which share stories are written in the ‘language of yesteryear’. There are two volumes that come to mind, being ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ and stories by Hans Christian Anderson. These stories not only introduce children to a vast array of very colourful old fashioned words that have been superseded by the idiom of modern language. They are also set in social situations of the past, largely replaced by the social attitudes and disposition of today. These stories lend to wonderful exploration of word development and a comparison of historical and contemporary social mores. They help with developing understanding of what has changed and why behaviours once acceptable have been replaced.

* The appeal of stories to imagination and ‘the mind’s eye’ is such that art growing or flowing from story presentation can be colourful and creative. If the story is one drawn from history, asking children to think of clothing, transport, buildings and other artefacts from the past can help with differentiation and clarify understanding.

* A great way of treating longer stories, is to serialise (or mini–series) them, with ‘to be continued’ as part of the understanding. That is a great way of helping children anticipate what may happen. A good story being well told can also be a motivator. Continuation can be applied as a reward for effort and endeavour.

Qualities

* Make sure when telling stories that you use clear, expressive language. Take the part with language variations of the characters you are describing.

* Engage children by asking them to respond by being characters in the story. Have them thing about and describe the characters, moods and attitudes of those around whom the story is centred.

* Have children act or visit the story or parts thereof through dramatic expression. Drama is a subject very rarely considered these days.

* As a story teller, make eye contact with the group. Vocal expression is important including pitch, rhythm and other elements of speech.

Concluding thought

I could go on about story telling. A good story told well, will be remembered for a long time. I still have people, now in their late teens and adult years, tell me they remember my story telling and how much they enjoyed stories I told.

It is a sad fact of life that adults tend to lose the capacity to imagine as they get older. To engage in story telling is to keep the imagination of the story teller alive and flourishing. As a school principal, I used to talk with children about the importance of imagination and imaginative thought. To tell stories has helped keep me in touch with this advice.

ON THE CORONAVIRUS

With the news conferences, cyberspace messages, news bulletins, and updates that seem to be happening every 10 minutes, it is hard to sort fact from myth when it comes to the coronavirus.

The medical profession is obviously not sure of itself in relation to the virus. The development of a vaccine is still very much in its infancy. Researchers however deserve bouquets for what they doing and how quickly they have moved since starting from scratch just a few short weeks ago.

In medical terms the confusion in part hangs around messages and counter messages. There is a concern that they contradict each other. For instance, I’ve read that people immunised against pneumonia have no guarantee that this immunisation will help in any way to avoid the impacts of the virus. However, advice from medical offices is for people to make sure they have the flu injection, particularly as we come into the cooler months of the year. There needs to be some sort of rationalisation or explanation to show the conjunction between these comments.

Panic buying of goods is not going to help. Panic buying only serves for a short-term purpose and this virus is about us being in for the long term haul.

Bats have a lot to answer for when it comes to this particular virus for its genesis seems to be with them. They have been responsible for a whole raft of viruses including SARS, bird flu, swine flu, the Hendra and Ebola viruses.

Hendra and Ebola aside, the starting point for viral outbreak and spread seems to be China. The coronavirus (COVIG 19) is just the latest to have its start-up pin-pointed to China. The country might be big on the front of economic development but seems to be caught short in awareness and apprehension of major disease outbreaks.

This virus (as was the case with Ebola) was offered early stimulation through the eating habits of humans.

MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL

COVIG 19 has a mind of its own. However, its spread is surely helped through the lack of ‘first base’ management by some countries into which it has spread. Iran is a case in point but the management in some other countries is questionable. Certainly it has well and truly jumped containment lines in South Korea, Iran and Italy.

The ‘Australian’ touched on a real issue when it ran an online story suggesting that selfishness of those who should be in self imposed quarantine for fourteen days. The story suggested that the unwillingness of people to commit 100% to this requirement was opening the door to the infection of others. The ‘I’ and ‘me’ belief in self entitlement puts the greater needs of society at risk if individuals fail to meet self isolation and social distancing requirements.

It is the personal entitlement syndrome that has lead to selfish hoarding of some goods and as evidenced by fights in supermarkets.

This same selfishness may lead some who should be self quarantining to ignore this isolation requirement. The upshot could have disastrous consequences for the unwary.

STOCK MARKET

Profiting through short selling from the hard earned of others is a greedy and selfish sin. Short selling should be legislated against and its practice should be criminialised. Short sellers are holding the government and our very core of existence to ransom. Their avarice and greed are determinants of the present stock market trembling.

Concentric management: a team approach to educational leadership

Much is written and said about leadership. Of all subjects, writings (and sayings) about this subject are probably more prolific than about any other. A sub-set of leading in general terms is the specific comment directed toward leadership within the educational domain.

School leaders are offered more in terms of oral and written comment than most. To pick and choose and to digest between models that are promoted as being superior to others is almost a full-time occupation. In fact, it is possible to become so involved in the naval gazing that can go with leadership consideration, that one can forgets to lead!

While theoretical considerations and the underpinnings of leadership models are important, to overlook the practicalities of leadership makes for very poor application. It is leadership in practice that makes the leader a leader, because that is what others see in outcome terms.

When considering leadership, matters of methodology and style come into play. Leadership models and types offered by proponents of the technology run to myriad proportion. It seems there is a style available for all occasions, alternatives than can be shaped to meet the needs of all situations. Again, it can come to a point of leaders being so busy considering leadership that they fail to lead.

Over time, and down the years since Samuel Taylor began the formal processes of writing about leadership typology (in the modern era), it seems that the key focus has been on hierarchal constructs. There have been variations within that model, with distance either maximised or minimised in terms of member identification within the leadership group.

Embracing the pyramid: hierarchical leadership

Hierarchical leadership is perhaps the most common, in wrapping around leadership modelling. In total hierarchical terms, there is the leader who sits atop the organisation in splendid isolation from everyone else. Such a leader is typically an autocrat’s autocrat – an out and out dictator! Leaders of this ilk may be where they are in part because of charisma, but more often because of singular, bloody-minded jackbootedness.

This leadership style is typified within various republics and totalitarian governments. That level and degree of hierarchical leadership, fortunately, does not pervade within education. It is however, all too apparent within countries whose populaces are tortured by such leaders.

Lone leadership is somewhat of a rarity. Much more common – and perhaps the most pervasive of all leadership models is that of shared hierarchy, with leadership layers going from top management echelons to middle then to lower level management. Accountabilities are generally upward toward the pyramid pinnacle, with accountability requirements generally being directed downward.

Below the levels of the pyramid containing the leadership group (who may or may not be a team) are positioned the workers, those within the organisation who make up its base. In other words, they are the foundation upon which the pyramid rests. This is a model of dependence and reliance, but may be one that minimalises respect and trust. It all depends on the linkages that exist between people within the organisation.

A fallacy of the pyramid is that those atop the structure (even those only half-way up as they look down) is that self-righteousness, self-importance and a sense of inflated personal self-worth can take over. Those within the leadership domain separate from those they are supposedly supporting through leadership and grow away from the team. Those they lead, in turn, come to look upon them with disparagement and with a lack of respect for them in the positions they occupy. Rather than working together, the group tends to pull apart. In organisations where the fabric is rent, the centre fails to hold, with hollowness replacing wholesomeness.

This is not fanciful discourse but an indicator of what can happen if those within primarily use the organisation for the sake of personal and individualised gain. Successful people organisations – and schools are critical people developers – work best if those within focus on togetherness and sharing. That can happen better if traditional hierarchical structures are restructured, flattened and shaped to reflect a concentric leadership approach.

Concentric leadership

Concentric leadership discounts hierarchy by flattening the pyramid. The leader remains the leader, those within the leadership structure occupy their positions, but all become part of the structure in terms of equality that cannot exist within the separation imposed by traditional hierarchy.

From above, a concentric organisation is best represented as a circle. In the middle of the circle, symbolising the cohort of souls that make up that place is a series of dots, representing the leadership group. That group are set ‘one apart’ from the majority but are in no way magnified or accentuated in the way traditional organisations describe and transcribe leadership. The majority of those within the organisation are signified as boundary riders who stand side by side to make up the organisational circle.

Mathematically speaking, a ‘circle is a series of dots. Symbolically speaking, each dot represents a member of the group standing side by side (left and right hand) with peers. That is a ‘bird’s eye’ view of a concentrically lead institution.

From the side and applying the principal of a circle being represented by a series of dots, a concentrically configured organisation is seen as shown below. In a school like mine, the biggest dot represents the principal, flanked by two assistant principals and two senior teachers.

Mathematically speaking, a ‘circle is a series of dots’. Symbolically speaking, each dot represents a member of the group standing side by side (left and right hand) with peers. That is a ‘bird’s eye’ view of a concentrically lead institution.

From the side and applying the principal of a circle being represented by a series of dots, a concentrically configured organisation is seen as shown below. In a school like mine, the biggest dot represents the principal, flanked by two assistant principals and two senior teachers.

Everyone else within the school community stands on the same plane and at the same level as the leadership group. Such an organisation is one priding itself on offering equality of recognition, with everyone being on the same plain. This model does not identify people on the basis of subordinates looking up and superordinates looking down. Everyone looks at each other is terms of simple sideways or ‘across the circle’ eye movement. Concentric leadership in principle and practice is designed to promote feelings of equality and togetherness in a way that would be frowned upon by traditional hierarchal adherents.

Respect-based leadership

My purpose in writing this piece is not to uphold one leadership style in a way that denigrates other models. It is rather an attempt to outline an approach which, if right for an organisation and if practised, can work to bring a group together in a way that releases powerful and positive organisational synergy.

In all situations and regardless of model, leadership is either ‘ascribed’ or ‘acquired’.

Ascribed leadership is the authority vested in a position by its creators and recognised by its holder(s). It is a power based leadership with expectations ‘commanded’ by superordinates. If the position holder doesn’t comply with expectations held of the position by those above, tenure can be short. An ‘upside’ from the viewpoint of the occupier can be that the incumbency offers the occupier a chance to wield power.

Sometimes that authority can be applied indiscriminately, but usually in the knowledge that the position holder will be protected from subordinate reaction by superordinate protection. A lot of middle level managers relish the power and authority vested in such positions.

Ascribed leadership authority is a perfect fit for the hierarchal model, where positions are (or can be) filled by those supplicating upward while operating quite intransigently in a downward direction. Ascribed authority is popular among those who want to get on, because it can offer guarantee of upward mobility by key decision-makers if the job is done to expectation at the level of occupancy.

Acquired authority is earned on the basis of perceptions held for leaders by those around him or her within the organisation. It grows from perceptions held of leaders that are respect based. Such authority is not conferred but is earned by way of the recognition that is shown to members of leadership teams by those being lead. Without doubt, it is the harder but more meaningful and everlasting of the two authority types that are in play.

The two can be conflictive. Respect is not necessarily earned by those leaders who play the power game, through adhering strictly to the demands and expectations of the position which come from above.

Neither is the leader who earns subordinate and peer respect necessarily highly regarded by those above, for the perceptions attaching to acquiring respect based recognition may infer a certain weakness in the character of such leaders as seen by superordinates. They may believe that respect has been offered because the leader is compromising, vacillating or too giving. Such a perception might threaten the ‘management on the basis of tight ship’ principle.

Trust, accountability and concentric leadership

Concentric leadership is not a model that will work well in distrustful situations. It may be that those at top leadership levels do not trust a leader further down the organisation, who advocates concentric practice because he or she may be seen to be less authoritative than desirable. There are also concerns that leaders who consult and fully engage with others in the organisation are weak, in not being able to make up their minds without considering the opinions of others. There is also suspicion that such consultation will be responded to in a selfish and narrow manner by those who are asked opinions by the leadership team.

There can be issues that arise from within organisations where a desire by leaders to be concentric, is signalled. Those within the structure may suspect that statements of intent are empty rhetoric, words without meaning. To sell the concept of concentrism, leaders must act and ‘live’ within a way that encourages trustful responses. This is perhaps best helped if leaders are available to their teams, avoiding being seen as remote or aloof.

Concentric leadership is in my opinion, anathema to the principle of ascribed management but sits comfortably in a context of acquired leadership. If leaders are on the same plane and operate at the same level as all within the organisation, then trust has to be a quality in place. By the same token, the leadership team does have an organisational accountability setting them a little part from others within the team. That context is shown by the elevation and the magnification of the dots, central to the linear structure as indicated in my first diagram.

There should be and there will be an identification of the concentrically positioned leadership group by those outside the organisation, meaning that the prime focus of accountability will be honed in from above, to where it belongs. There will also be an appreciation by those within, that the leadership team has a job to do. With everyone operating on the same level, communication should be enhanced because those within the organisation don’t have to crane their necks in ‘looking up’ to the leadership group.

Rather the ‘looking up’ is inward and soulful being based on the respect and trust that developed within a group in which everyone is on the same plane. True concentric leadership gives a new and positive meaning to the concept of the ‘level playing field’.

Quality leadership: never utopian but constantly striving

No organisation anywhere can boast leadership panacea, because organisational equilibrium constantly changes. However, in striving for the best that can happen within an organisation, I strongly commend an approach that takes concentric leadership into account. The advantages are there, provided that trust is a quality that exists and which can be factored in to strengthen through concentric practice.

While concentrism may fly in the face of the hierarchically inclined, it can be promoted and shown as building a character and strength that is positive and enhancing. In a school context, the trust and respect growing from such an approach adds hugely to internalised values. Vesting confidence in such a model is helpful to the macro-organisation in achieving its goals because of the micro-satisfaction of its parts. Happy and well functioning school units mean that DEET Corporate is enhanced.

If those within schools are happy, satisfied and achieve organisation balance that in turn is good for the superstructure that is our Department of Employment, Education and Training. If the system is going to build and develop, then the genesis of positivism has to come from its foundations. Schools are the foundation on which DEET is built. Concentric leadership may well influence, in a positive way, ‘from the ground up’. If that happens, with an enhancement of trustfulness upon which the model is predicated, then all augurs well for future system developments.

Be warned, however! There are those to whom such a model is anathema, because the one thing they don’t want is for their positional power and ascribed authority to be wilted.

Concentric leadership is for those who believe in collectivity and togetherness. It can be organisationally fulfilling because it satisfies all those within, who have genuine stake and interest in the school or situation they are leading. It will never suit those whose aim is to pontificate, dictate and lead by command from the great heights of hierarchal pyramids.