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Staff voice is also interesting. It's why I like PLCs and Lesson study, as it is rooted in the teacher's own practice, guided by their interest. This is another aspect where the formality of facilitation allows staff to be curious.

If we can facilitate opportunities for passing conversations, anecdotally, great things can happen.

Beer uses a wonderful example when talking about organisation charts mapping accountability not conversations. He came at it from the point of view of removing cross-departmental coffee breaks (unnecessary) causing a firm to lose vital communication pathways. But it works the other way too.

Thanks for tagging me in, Claire. Loads of interesting aspects. I think the formality point is great. We need some formality to start something, otherwise it is a bit too 'hopeful'. Organic from scratch might work, but it might not also happen. What comes next is indeed where the magic is.

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The counter to this would be that in this situation the head is a good leader as they have appointed people well. Which is why I think leadership is the property of the organisation, as it accounts for all possible combinations of leaders, but focusses on the overall outcome.

If the Head is a poor leader, I think it difficult for an organisation to be well led unless somehow others are able to articulate the vision and reduce uncertainty in spite of them. Theoretically, that can happen of course.

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I think it is perfectly possible to have good middle leaders with poor SLT and vice versa. They are able to communicate the vision and reduce uncertainty. But whether an organisation has good leadership is dependent upon the overall communication and enactment of the vision.

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But within that I think that good leaders are those that reduce uncertainty. So there can be good (and bad) leaders at all levels, but their roles will be different, I think.

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I think we can. But I also think it possible to have good leadership achieving a vision we don’t like. The ‘like or not’ is at best in parallel to ‘achieved or not’, perhaps downstream.

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I think that’s fair. If leaders decide the vision, that should form part of how we judge leadership. But if a vision is not crap, then achieving it would represent good leadership imo. Especially in the context of schools.

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And therefore, in relation to @cmooreanderson.bsky.social’s point, we cannot say leadership is poor because we don’t like the vision or think it could be better. That’s a different argument.

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One could argue the first has poor leadership because they could have achieved more, sure. But that is a hindsight judgement - if visions are agreed and achieved, that has to be good leadership.

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I’m not asking which is or will be the better school. I’m simply asking about leadership. I would argue it reasonable to conclude that the first has better leadership - they knew what was possible and achieved it. The second lacked something - either implementation, realism or something else.

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Imagine two schools with exactly the same outcomes in all possible metrics. One had a vision to achieve exactly what they said. One had more ambitious aims but has missed them. Which has the better leadership? The one that achieved exactly what it said it would, or the one that fell short?

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Okay, but you don’t disagree with the vision or think it is not valid, just you would do something different? I think that’s totally valid, but not quite the same as having a crap vision.

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As in, you think there are visions with which you disagree vehemently? Can you give me an example? I presume you wouldn’t then work in such a school. But back to you point, a leader who delivers on that vision is still a good leader. Because some people must think it’s a good vision to have?

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But that isn’t the same as a bad vision. That’s a poorly enacted one, which means a poorly led one imo. I don’t think the vision is the pertinent problem in this case

Even more to the point, I would wager there are very few crap school mission statements, or ones with which a teacher would disagree with vehemently.

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What might be a great vision at one point in time might turn out to be crap with hindsight. But the leadership at the time might not know this. Doesn't make them a poor leader, it makes it a poor mission.

Dan Rosen @musingsofadr.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

I disagree. I think they are a good leader. They are just leading something crap. The whole point of a leader is to achieve the mission. The value of the mission is a different debate.

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This is a different type of knowledge. You are talking about personal knowledge of Paris. If you wanted to have some form of shared knowledge of Paris e.g. where a specific place is, what colour a building is, then you would need to be able to verify it some how.

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Dan Rosen @musingsofadr.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Using your logic, all you know is that they have declared something, surely? If I say that 4 squared is 28, do I know what 4 squared is?

Dan Rosen @musingsofadr.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Great post! Loving the links to variety and cybernetics.

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I think the innate sense of positive or negative value you describe is simply anchored to the values we hold, consciously or not. That's what makes it +ve or -ve. And I do agree that the feeling of this can make us more aware of what we actually value.

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Sorry, should have made it clearer that I don't think we need to be conscious/aware of our values. I'd argue that in many cases people are guided by values about which they are not explicitly aware.

How so? We agreed that values don’t have to be explicit…. We can value survival, nutrition, avoiding pain, sunlight etc.. that would be the driver to determine whether an action is worth doing.

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I don't think 'correct' applies here. It would be 'correct for me and what I value'. I think we just disagree that the action is assigned value at the point of the decision making. I think the potential/predicted value informs the decision, value assigned post fact.

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😀 I guess I am suggesting that the notion of 'good or bad' requires 'a value' (my definition). The aim is not sufficient for the judgement, we need more. It needs to be 'a value judgement'.

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Don't disagree about the fundamental aim is viability/survival. But there are many ways to survive. I would argue our values shape the way we survive.

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2. How do you determine a satisfactory outcome? Or a good outcome? In must be in reference to something other than the aim. Because the outcome can still be a good even if the aim is not achieved, and can be bad even if the outcome is achieved.

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I don't think they need to be a conscious thing at all, although many would suggest that coaching helps people articulate them. I have two questions. 1. What is determining the need to make a decision in the first place? Past experiences, sure, but what about them?

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These are what I am calling values - both initiating the need for a decision *and* the reference point to determine whether the outcome is valuable. So in this example, the player is valuing winning, teamwork etc..

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But what was it that caused a decision to be made in the first place? Why does the person want to achieve those aims?

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From your football example, aims are clear. And I can see that 'a value' can be attributed to their *predicted* outcome and the decision about which action to take is based on this. I agree that we are using the term values differently, and see that distinction.

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Not, not at all. I’m saying we have a broad array of values and they influence our decisions. Implicitly or explicitly. But I am saying that the value comes first, then the aims.

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Unfortunately I am not seeing the distinction. Can you give me an example? An action, value and aim?

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But the aims are based on our values. What do we hold dear, what do we want to achieve and why? That’s all based on values, or a compromise of values.

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Right. And all of that is what makes up your values. These are the things you hold dear and want to keep dear, so you align your actions with these to try and ensure this.

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I disagree. I think it’s exactly what underpins everything. Think about the speeding action. What would mean you decide to speed, what would mean you decide not to?

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I’m saying we can only know the actual value of an action post fact. Our prediction of the value is based on the learning and experience, but it might not be correct.

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Right, but I’m arguing that the thing to which we refer when assigning ‘value’ is what most people call ‘values’. It could be any concept, e.g. the rule of law, family, money. But these concepts are the reference points.

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But what underpins them? Distal aims as a term makes sense. But what drive the aims? How do you decide which aims to go for and which to not go for?

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But where does that fundamental weighting come from? How does anyone decide what to put weight on? We can’t say that value is the assigned weighting without raising the question of how the weighting is determined. What do you call that?

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And I’m sure we can convince ourselves post fact that any outcome is actually valuable, thereby justifying the action.

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Which means there is not inherent value, only inherent predicted/perceived value. Over time we can get better at predicting, which means we are more able to act in line with what we want… but it’s still a guess, not a certainty

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