Promotion, and the ways to encourage or discourage, was the second research question because without people moving up the career ladder there inevitably leads to a leadership crisis. From previous research by Rhodes and Brundrett (2006) staff will often remain at a school, “if those with influence over the circumstances of teachers’ experience of work encourage the possibilities for fostering increased job commitment through their leadership actions” (p282). Promotion links directly with succession planning. Succession planning is where employers ‘talent spots’ future leaders and give them opportunities to advance their career.
Succession planning, as was emphasized within the literature review, is a relevant aspect of all areas of employment. As Rothwell (2010) comments “few businesses want to invest substantial time, money and effort to recruit, select, orient and develop their most productive people but it’s a worthwhile exercise” (p298). These days, no one is indispensable and there has to be mechanisms in place to deal with changeover of personnel. The thesis wanted to analyze the realities of succession planning as a tool to improve the leadership crisis, and whether schools really had any such plans in place.
One of the main themes that emerged from the questionnaires and the interviews was that succession planning is happening in the education system, and that there is a strong ‘grow your own’ approach. Coaching and mentoring was consistently discussed as a relevant part of encouraging promotion. These findings link to the research by MacBeath (2009) who argued that creating a ‘coaching and mentoring’ (p3) system for senior leaders would alleviate any leadership crisis in education.
In the questionnaire, section C2 asked for opportunities that were believed necessary to empower people to take up headship. There were two main aspects that were discussed in the most detail. The first was being given chances to lead throughout all aspects of middle and senior leadership; the other response was to look deeper into coaching and mentoring. The five responses gave other possible areas that are also worth considering. Questionnaire eleven was one such response which felt that the deputy should regularly be seconded for a month at a time to ‘collaborate and to view other schools’ methods of leadership’. This concept of ‘learning on the job’ is the key to true succession planning and would enhance any future school leadership development course. The ‘job swap’ would rely on head teacher’s trust, as a month out of one school can be a big commitment to any school’s academic year. If, as a Catholic community, we wish to truly solve our leadership crisis then serious consideration must be given to mentoring our deputy heads and creating a
programme of job swaps within the annual cycle of performance management.
Talent management has emerged as a theme to solve the leadership crisis within the last few years. This is the idea that serving head teachers considers the skills of their workforce and then actively encourages the development of their employees according to their
strengths. Barber, Whelan and Clark (2010) identified three approaches that schools need to adopt in order for true talent management to work. If these three areas are consistently adopted then succession planning will evident throughout all education units, and therefore halt any further leadership crisis. The research was conducted through completion of a survey of nearly two thousand leaders across eight countries and seventy interviews with education experts.
The three aspects that Barber et al. (2010) discuss is ‘self-identification’ (p9), 'leadership interest'(p9) and ' being proactive' (p9). 'Self-identification' (p9) which is where there is a mutual agreement that a person has leadership capacity and where they are ‘coached’ (p9) to develop areas within the school they are in. The second stage shapes the coaching further to allow the “potential leader to take appropriate courses to build interest in leadership” (p9). This second stage is managed by the head teacher to develop the
appropriate skills required for school leadership. The final approach is ‘proactive’ (p9). This is where the head teacher allows the trainee to take over an area of responsibility and then supports and directs as necessary. With these three stages, created from discussions with so many educational professionals worldwide, serious consideration needs to be given to the value of talent management as a strategy for dealing with the leadership crisis.
The National College in 2012 founded a site dedicated to talent management within its succession planning area. There are many pieces of current research being conducted to consider how talent management can alleviate the leadership crisis. The central and reoccurring theme that is emerging is that talent management (especially where staff are encouraged to take on leadership roles from an early stage) is one solution to the leadership crisis and that further studies need to happen to show if this will have a long term effect. As succession planning, as the research has found, is happening then future research on talent management is very timely. The questionnaires and interviews all agreed that a ‘grow your own’ approach is inherent within Catholic education. It is therefore imperative that more work on the theme of talent management is included in any future leadership training sessions to alleviate a further leadership crisis.
5.4 The factors that are inhibiting senior leaders from taking on headship