Enhancing the effectiveness of senior management teams in schools

Abstract

Teams and teamwork are of increasing importance in schools. This is certainly the case for bodies such as senior management teams (SMTs) which typically hold strategic leadership and decision-making roles in schools. Reported in this paper is a process that can be used by SMTs (and other teams) to critically reflect on their dynamics and current practices and lead to the identification of strategies to develop a more desired situation. The process discussed here uses the ideas of micropolitical theory to facilitate critical reflection on the dynamics of senior management teams and involves: (i) completion of a specially designed questionnaire (TEAM Development Questionnaire) for how the team operates at present (the REAL) and how team members would like it to operate (the IDEAL); (ii) generation and discussion of REAL and IDEAL team profiles and their correlations and otherwise; and (iii) action planning by the SMT to identify strengths as well as identifying areas for future development.