Supporting Pioneering Leaders as Communities of Practice: How to Rapidly Develop New Leaders in Great Numbers
by Margaret Wheatley
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Overview
One of the Educational Leaders reviewers commented on this article, “In terms of up-to-date thinking, this article has what is needed.” This remark sums up nicely the refreshing approach that Margaret Wheatley takes in many of her editorial pieces. She typically challenges current orthodoxies and invites readers to look at things in a different way. In this thought-provoking article, she laments the current ways that most institutions are led and suggests alternative ways of constructing the notion of leadership that will appeal to a new generation of ‘leadership pioneers’.
The new generation of leaders, she argues, will need new ways of learning how to be leaders. She has two suggestions for how this might be achieved, one based on the work of Paolo Freire and one based on the notion of the ‘community of practice’. Her description of a model for such a community will have resonances for New Zealand school leaders who are working towards setting up such communities of practice in their own schools and with other schools.
In addition to being a professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, Margaret Wheatley is president of the Berkana Institute, a research foundation working on the design of new organisations.
Reflective questions
These reflective questions might guide you in your reading of this article:
• This article focuses on making connections. How do you find, ‘multiple ways for members to connect with one another’ in your own environment?
• One of the ways Wheatley suggests it is possible to move forward is to tell the stories of the community. What would this look like in your environment? What are some of the new ways of doing things that you could tells stories about?
Further reading
Paulo Freire webpage about informal education, by Mark Smith
‘Communities of practice’ by Mark Smith, on ‘The Encyclopedia of Informal Education’ webpage
References
Wheatley, M. (2002). Supporting Pioneering Leaders as Communities of Practice: How to rapidly develop new leaders in great numbers [Online].
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