Brian's Blog

The balance between work and personal life is a constant conflict for leaders in many fields ( Friedman & Greenhaus, 2000; Pocock, 2003). Education is certainly not immune (d'Arbon, Duignan, & Duncan, 2002; Hudson, 2012; Grissom, Loeb & Mitani, 2015).  In fact, how this issue is managed and supported by schools is increasingly recognised as of strategic importance to the organisation and of significance to employees (De Cieri, Holmes, Abbott, & Pettit, 2005; Queen & Queen, 2005). It would be thoughtless to consider that community demands on educational leaders do not cause stress and impact on where they spend their time. In fact, it is only through an examination of the effects of the culture of stress that educators can begin the process of reclaiming time, priorities and health (Queen & Queen, 2005). In my own context, moving into a new facility with five teachers collaboratively co-teaching side by side 112 students aged 11 and 12, we as a ...

In today’s interdependent and rapidly changing world, numerous challenges threaten our ability to create sustainable and principled societies. True leadership requires a compelling vision, the ability to inspire and hold close both the moral and ethical values interwoven into our lives (Greenfield & Ribbins, 1993). Current literature (Ehrich, Harris, Klenowski, Smeed & Spina, 2015) identifies the heightened awareness of the ethical dimensions of educational leadership in a context of increasing performance driven accountability. The key challenges involve tensions between opposite value positions (Cranston, Ehrich, & Kimber, 2006) where leaders need to navigate the shades of grey, for example, common good versus individual rights; care versus rules; loyalty versus justice; and long-term versus short-term perspectives. ( Duignan, 2006).  The opposing value positions above, identify complexities leaders have when considering the perspective nuances of the situ...

"Change is the essence of life: be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become" - Reinhold Neibuhr  Over Christmas, I was asked by friends what the New Year had in store for me as a professional? My response was considered; however, vague. Unlike other years where my role and direction was very clear, this year was totally different. This year is one where major changes are about to happen for my team and I. It is a time where many of our practices formed over years of working in  silo's  were going to be torn down as we move into a new facility designed for team teaching with a minimum of 5 teachers and over 100 students. This change will force countless amounts of unknown practical transformations along with major pedagogical shifts in us individually as professionals by removing our ability to hide our professional practice behind walls away from each other.  While this could be seen as a scary step, I fi...