Some years ago, we had some friends around for dinner one night. I had been reading a book on leadership and had left it in the lounge. One of our friends saw it and asked me why I was reading it. I replied,” Because I need to learn as much as possible about leadership if I am to be a quality leader.” She was quite astonished because I was then Principal of a large K- 12 school on a multi educational activity campus over which I was also the General Manager.  “But you have already succeeded as a leader so what else is there to learn?” she asked.

This is not an uncommon assumption people make. You have achieved what is regarded as the height of success so you must know it all. This is of course completely untrue. We often only really learn how to do something once we are in that role. The other mistake people make is that once you have learnt enough to get to a certain position, that learning is now sufficient for the future.

We know that our world is rapidly changing and leadership styles and strategies of the past, may no longer be adequate for the uncertain and volatile future we face. I write this from Cairns where I am attending the National Leadership Summit for Christian Schools Australia school leaders. The focus has been on leading in uncertain and changing times and one of the presenters is Dr Matthew Kutz from the USA who has published a book called ‘Contextual Intelligence’ (Palgrave, Macmillan, 2017). Matt is a university professor and presents to Fortune 500 companies and one thing he spoke about really took my attention.

He was talking about the difference between complex situations/problems and complicated situations/problems. Both involve many different parts, but a complex situation is one in which it is difficult to separate out the components of the issue and resolve it by simply dealing with that single component. Complicated situations can be resolved by singling out the issue that needs addressing and fixing or resolving it. He used the analogy of a ball of different coloured play dough in which all the colours have been rolled and mixed together. Once that is done, you cannot extract one single colour. Or, a cake which is made of many different ingredients but once mixed together you cannot get one of them back. A complicated situation is like a lego structure. Many different parts and colours but any one of them, if broken or malfunctioning or in the wrong place, can be isolated and taken out and replaced. 

We now live in a world that is complex so new approaches are needed to resolve problems. Schools are caught up in this too so keeping up with new thinking in leadership enables us to lead our school forward into this uncertain and challenging world. This is why our foci are on life-long learning and critical thinking. We want to equip our students to thrive in a complex world and to do so, we as leaders and teachers need to know how to do that.

We need not be afraid of the challenges ahead as God promises us that He is always with us and if we lack wisdom about what to do, He will provide us with that wisdom. We need to exercise this wisdom and grow in it but we do so with His help.

Phillip Nash

Principal