Establishing productive principal/principal supervisor partnerships for instructional leadership

Pages463-483
Date09 September 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-09-2018-0184
Published date09 September 2019
AuthorRebecca A. Thessin
Subject MatterEducation,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education
Establishing productive
principal/principal supervisor
partnerships for
instructional leadership
Rebecca A. Thessin
Department of Educational Leadership,
The George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand what the principal and principal supervisor each bring
and contribute to their collaborative work that is consequential for the principals learning and development
as an instructional leader.
Design/methodology/approach Multiple case study methodology is used to gather data from 12
principal supervisor/principal partnerships over a 16 month period in one Mid-Atlantic school district. Data
sources included interviews, observational data and documents provided by participants in the study.
Findings In productive principal supervisor/principal partnerships, findings demonstrated that the
principal supervisor and the principal each brought specific antecedent characteristics to their partnership
and each made contributions to the development of a productive partnership during their collaborative work.
When these partnership qualities were present, principal supervisors and principals engaged in joint work,
leading to robust changes in principalsinstructional leadership practice.
Research limitations/implications This study examined the work of principals and principal
supervisors in one large Mid-Atlantic school district.
Practical implications Findings from this study have implications for districtsassignments of principal
supervisors, principal supervisor/principal selection and professional development of principal supervisors.
Further, districts should create the conditions for principal supervisors and principals to establish
learning-focused professional partnerships in three stages, culminating in the engagement of joint work for
improvement to facilitate principalschanges in instructional leadership practice.
Originality/value Findings from this study illustrate the value of establishing a learning-focused
partnership between principal supervisors and principals in three stages to facilitate robust stages in
principalsinstructional leadership practice. A new conceptual framework displays the stages of partnership
development that occur in productive principal/principal supervisor partnerships.
Keywords Principals, Educational administration, Supervisors, Leadership, Partners
Paper type Research paper
As the role and responsibilities of the principal have changed considerably since the
enactment of No ChildLeft Behind, school district centraloffices have assumed responsibility
for providing critical support to principals and to schools in improving instruction. In this
context, numerouscentral offices in mid-sizedand large urban districts aroundthe nation are
reshaping the role of principal supervisors to focus less on business and compliance, and to
instead provide intensive, job-embedded coaching to principals to strengthen principals
instructional leadership (Corcoran et al., 2013; Honig, 2012; Jerald, 2012). As instructional
leaders, principals work closelywith classroom teachers to improveclassroom instruction and
produce improvements in student learning (Elmore, 2004; Knapp et al., 2014). To facilitat e
principalsgrowth as instructionalleaders, central office supervisorsvisit schools more often
than in the past and now haveinstructionally focused meetingswith principals (Honig, 2012). Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 57 No. 5, 2019
pp. 463-483
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-09-2018-0184
Received 29 September 2018
Revised 25 March 2019
Accepted 22 May 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
Funding for this research project was generously provided by the Spencer Foundation. Findings
presented in the article represent the authors work and may not represent the Foundation.
463
Instructional
leadership
The central offices direct support of principalsprofessionaldevelopment has evolved from a
focus on supervision to one centered on coaching, mentoring andpartnering with the specific
goal of improvingstudent achievement (Browne-Ferrignoand Allen, 2006; Clarke and Wildy,
2011; Johnson and Chrispeels, 2010; Leithwood, 2010).
This shift in role for principal supervisors, from being hands-on solvers of
administrative problems to coaches strengthening instructional leadership(Turnbull
et al., 2015, p. 56), is substantial and requires further exploration. Honig (2012) described
the new role of the principal supervisor as one of providing assistance, as assistance
relationships tend to deepen and improve peoples work across settings. Her research
across three districts, conducted as this change in role first developed, captured practices
involved in these relationships that provided support for principalsinstructional
leadership: engaging in joint work, differentiating, modeling, developing and using tools,
and brokering. Yet, as Honig (2012) identified, these more recent principal supervisor
practices stand in contrast to traditional central office supervisory relationships in which
central office staff monitor the work of principals, but do not engage in the work
themselves. In shifting the nature of the relationship between the principal and the
principal supervisor, it is vital to examine how specific aspects of the relationship may
affectthedegreetowhichtheprincipalgrowsas an instructional leader who can facilitate
instructional improvement.
Research conducted on executive coaching in the business field points to the importance
of the relationship between the coach and coachee and the potential effect on the outcomes
of the pairswork (Baron and Morin, 2009; de Haan et al., 2011; Natale and Diamante, 2005).
Only a few empirical studies refer to this collaborative relationship between a coach and
coachee as an equal partnership(Bozer et al., 2014; Natale and Diamante, 2005).
In education, Robertson (2009) calls attention to the concept of partnership within the
learning relationship. In a professional partnership, she articulates, [] leaderspersonal
experiences of reciprocal learning relationships influence their leadership practice(p. 40).
Our prior research demonstrated that administrative interns who first established a
partnership with their supervising mentor principal were likely to later engage in learning
during their leadership experiences as interns (Thessin et al., 2018). Similar to the mentor
principal, principal supervisors are now being asked to facilitate learning about
instructional leadership for principals as a coach, while still serving in a dual role as a
supervisor, traditionally a role of overseeing, approving and evaluating.
In this unique context, we have yet to understand what the principal and principal
supervisor each bring and contribute to their collaborative work that isconsequential for the
principals learning and development as an instructional leader. The current paper, therefore,
attends specifically to the concept of the partnership between the principal supervisor and
the principal, i.e.the coach and the coachee, in examining howtheir collaborative work leads
to the principals change in leadership practice. This paper seeks to answer:
RQ1. What antecedent characteristics do principal supervisors and principals each bring
to their relationship to encourage a productive partnership?
RQ2. During their collaborative work, what do the principal supervisors and principals
each contribute to the development of a productive partnership?
Our data came from a broader 16-month study in which we examined the work of 12
principal and principal supervisor pairs in a large Mid-Atlantic school district that was an
early adopter of this new model of principal supervision. Findings from the study revealed
that the types of changes principals made in their instructional leadership practice through
the support of the principal supervisor varied from robust, to simple, to no change at all,
with these degrees of change being influenced by qualities of the partnership. For the
purposes of this paper, partnerships that generated robust changes in the principals
464
JEA
57,5

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