Premier’s Minter Ellison Educational Leadership Scholarship
The relationship between leadership
and information-processing styles
among school principals
Tom Cerni
The Scots College, Sydney
Sponsored by
The truly great tragedy is the destruction of our human resources by our failure to freely
utilize our abilities, which means that most men and women go to their graves with their
music still in them. The tragedy is compounded when those of us in leadership positions do
not utilize our abilities to properly direct and inspire those in our sphere of influence to
become all they are capable of becoming.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Purpose of field study
The purpose of my study tour from 6 October to 12 November 2005 was to examine the
current trends in leadership training for school principals. It also involved extending my
current PhD study, which examines the way school principals process information in
relation to their leadership style. At a personal level, it was a journey of connection,
growth, and discovery. The scholarship provided a unique opportunity to meet people
and visit organisations one usually only ever reads about in research articles and books.
During the five-week tour, it was evident that I had moved through a significant
transition in terms of not only a deeper understanding my chosen area of research, but
also an appreciation of culture and human generosity. It also provided a deeper
understanding of the current research trends and the many challenges faced by educators
in Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Moving from a micro
to a macro view of the world was both challenging and highly rewarding, that is, from
the perspective of one school to a national and international perspective. With so many
new experiences, there was a need for flexible thinking, open-mindedness and higherorder processing, especially when conducting interviews with leading figures in the field.
Leadership training for school principals
The first phase of the study tour was to develop an understanding of the current status
of leadership training programs for school principals. This involved visits to Teaching
Australia—Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, formally known as
the National Institute for Quality Teaching and School Leadership, Canberra, in
Australia; Binghamton University, State University of New York, in the United States;
and the National College for School Leadership, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
My first meeting was with the executive team at Teaching Australia—Australian Institute
for Teaching and School Leadership. Being the national body for the teaching
profession, its mission is to promote quality teaching and school leadership. The three
main goals are:



Establishing a national system of standards for school leadership;
Establishing a national approach to enhancing professional learning for school
leaders;
Building leadership capacity in schools.
In 2006, the executive team aims to work closely with the Hay Group, based at the
University of Melbourne, and with other world experts to develop a training program for
school principals. Currently in the design phase, the program will incorporate evidencebased practice to school leadership.
During my time in Canberra, I also had the opportunity to visit the Quality Schooling
Branch of the Department of Education, Science and Training. The main focus was to
better understand the allocation of Commonwealth funding arrangements for Teaching
Australia and the working relationship between the two organisations.
The visit also provided an opportunity to learn about various projects such as the Dare to
Lead project involving school principals. That project sets out to improve Indigenous
children’s schooling and is well supported by the Australian Principals Associations’
Professional Development Council. Coincidently, a few weeks later while in Toronto,
Canada, I read an article in the National Post about the launch of a 10-year plan by the
Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin, aimed at closing the quality of life gap between
Aboriginals and the rest of Canadian society. I forwarded that article to the Department
of Education, Science and Training upon my return.
During my visit to Binghamton University, State University of New York, I had the
opportunity to meet with several staff, including Distinguished Professor Francis
Yammarino, Director of the Center for Leadership Studies at the School of Management;
Professor Marilyn Tallerico, Director of Education at the School of Education and
Human Development; and Dr Joseph Busch, District Superintendent and CEO of the
Broome-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCEs).
It was an excellent opportunity to learn about the Southern Tier Leadership Academy, an
initiative funded by regional schools and BOCEs. The academy was established to
develop high-potential teachers to the point where they could consider becoming school
administrators. In its sixth year of operation, Dr Busch evaluated the program in 2005.
According to Professor Yammarino, one of the problems with educational
administration programs is that there is much work done on educational administration
and educational management but very little on educational leadership.
At Binghamton University a new certification program focusing on educational
leadership is being developed in collaboration with the School of Management, School of
Education and Human Development, School of Public Administration, and the Southern
Tier Leadership Academy. Professor Marilyn Tallerico has recently been appointed to
develop that program so that it meets the needs of the New York State Education
Department and also works across relevant academic and school units.
During my visit to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of
Toronto I conducted interviews with institute Chair Professor Nina Bascia, and
professors Jim Anderson and John Portelli. I was able to learn about various projects,
including the recently completed Canadian National project entitled Student Engagement
and School Life in Learning. The aim of that project was to examine the way in which
schools could develop as democracies, with the focus on critical democracy rather than
procedures.
One of the program’s outcomes suggests that when a school operates with high levels of
trust it is more likely to move towards the development of a ‘curriculum of life’ rather
than a ‘curriculum for life’. A follow-up project entitled Towards an Equitable Education
is currently being completed. During my visit it was also possible to spend a full day at
the institute library, with its extensive resources on educational leadership.
During my time at the National College for School Leadership (NCLS), Nottingham, I
met with Dr Jane Doughty, Acting Director of Leadership Programs, and Dr Meg
Maunder, Assistant Director of Leadership Programs. Opening in November 2000,
NCLS was set up to develop world-class leaders through career-long development and
support. The NCSL building, with its premier-class hotel and restaurant facilities are
world-class and highlight the importance placed on educational leadership by the
government.
Funding to NCSL in 2004–05 was ₤111.3 million, which reflects a strong emphasis on
the importance of effective leadership and management in improving school outcomes.
With that level of financial support, NCSL has been able to develop a range of leadership
programs for middle-level leaders, established leaders, leadership teams, aspiring
principals, and heads of department. NCSL also has a substantial research role, which
includes the evaluation of new and remodeled programs.
The Leadership Program for Serving Headteachers (www.ncls.org.uk/lpsh), for example,
has been very successful since its inception in 1998. Originally based on the Hay Group
model, the focus has been to develop highly effective head teachers. In any one year
there are 8000 people studying for the headship qualification and 6000 involved in the
emergent leaders program called Leading from the Middle. NCSL also offers an
international research associates program (www.ncsl.org.uk/bestpracticeworldwide)
which allows overseas practitioners and academics to undertake a research sabbatical in
England to conduct research on a specific aspect of school leadership.
The executive staff at NCSL are exploring the concept of community leadership in an
attempt to raise school standards and the achievement of students. That may be
particularly relevant to a school that has reached an academic plateau.
(www.ncsl.org.uk/communityleadership). The argument is that parents and the wider
community may need to be involved in order to take achievement to the next level.
Leadership and Information-processing
The aim of the second phase of the study was to extend my current PhD study, which
focuses on the way school principals process information in relation to their leadership
style. This involved visits to San Francisco, California; Akron, Ohio; New Haven,
Connecticut; and Amherst, Massachusetts.
In San Francisco, I visited the Centre for Leadership Renewal (www.leadrenewal.com)
and met with its president, Mr. John O’Neil. A prolific and highly acclaimed writer in the
area of leadership, he is perhaps best known for his text, The Paradox of Success, which has
been translated into several languages and used widely by most graduate business schools
throughout the world.
At 74, Mr. O’Neil is a source of great knowledge, experience and wisdom. Among the
many pages of notes taken during the interview, it was suggested that when it comes to
educational leadership the principal needs to ask where the school is going and what will
the needs of students be in 10 years time. Leadership also requires a principal to be a
prodder, one who shapes and tests hypotheses. When a successful principal reaches the
heights of leadership is a time when they need to work harder to stay on top; otherwise,
they could experience a change in entropy (energy). For a leader to be successful they
need persistence, compassion/empathy and ego strength. There is also a need to
continually develop trust and maintain transparency.
During the visit to Arkon University, Akron, Ohio, I conducted two separate interviews
with a leading authority on information processing, Distinguished Professor Robert
Lord. Professor Lord defined leadership as a social process, and the essence of leadership
is how a person is perceived by other people. Given that there is a strong emotional
component attached to leadership, people perceive a person to be a leader, especially a
charismatic leader, if they make us feel better than we did before we encountered them.
We discussed the concept of embodied cognitions, the brain as a laminar structure, and
current research on visualisation, which aims to get closer to the real phenomena of
leadership (Naidoo, Walters, Lord & Dubois, 2005).
At one stage during my visit to the United States, it was as though history paused as the
nation reflected on the passing of Rosa Parks, aged 92. It was in 1955 that Rosa Parks
galvanised the civil rights movement through her defiance to give up her seat on a city
bus and consequently helped bring about an end to racial segregation in the United
States. During the service in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C., Rev. Barry Black,
the Senate chaplain, said that, ‘We are grateful that by sitting down, she enabled millions
to stand up for a better world’ (USA Today, 31 October 2005, p. A1).
It was reported in The Times and Democrat that: ‘True leadership is not easy … And Rosa
Parks taught us leadership can emerge from anywhere … Let us hope Rosa Parks’ story
is among those told in classes on leadership.’
During my interview with Professor Lord on the topic of leadership, he described Martin
Luther King Jr as a great leader because he had the ability to move from being concerned
about himself to being concerned with a whole group of people, not just how they work,
but how they could be in the future. This, in my view, is equally true of Rosa Parks,
whose courageous act sparked the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott and ignited
the modern civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.
At Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, one of the interviews conducted was with
Assistant Professor Jeremy Gray. It was an excellent opportunity to extend my current
research knowledge about the interplay between emotional and cognitive informationprocessing systems as they apply to leadership. These two systems were described by
Professor Gray as important, functional, and adaptive in a psychological sense and
probably in an evolutionary sense. While the two systems can at times be in conflict,
Professor Gray’s main interest is in how they interact adaptively, for example, how
emotion facilitates cognitive processing.
The research conducted by Professor Gray suggests that the two systems are integrated
in a strong sense, with one being the context of the other. It is difficult to understand the
operation of one system until you take into account what the other system is doing at the
same time. Both systems are dynamic and responsible for steering the organism in the
environment. In terms of leadership, it was suggested that an effective leader is a person
who can readily size up the situation and be flexible enough to understand the operation
of the two systems.
The highlight of the study tour was the time spent with Emeritus Professor Seymour
Epstein in Amherst, Massachusetts. Professor Epstein formulated the cognitiveexperiential self theory, a theory that is a focus of my PhD research. It was both an
honour and privilege to finally meet Professor Epstein, given that our correspondence
dates back to 1997 during the completion of my Masters degree. At 81, his clarity of
thought and collective wisdom were inspirational!
The interviews conducted with Professor Epstein over the three-day period were the
most comprehensive and it is beyond the scope of this report to provide more than some
of the key points. Similar to the work of Jeremy Gray at Yale University, Epstein and his
colleagues have demonstrated that human beings operate using two informationprocessing systems. The experiential system learns directly from experience, is
preconscious, operates automatically, and is intimately associated with emotions. The
rational system, on the other hand, operates according to logical inferences, is conscious,
deliberative, and relatively emotion free. Depending on the situation and person it is
believed that all human behaviour is determined by a combined influence of the two
systems.
The most important thing that cognitive-experiential self theory could contribute to a
leader, according to Professor Epstein, is to facilitate an understanding of their
experiential system. By doing so, the leader could better control for their biases and also
behave objectively and realistically. The experiential system is in control because it
operates behind the scenes without detection. The rational system, on the other hand, is
in control when people are aware of its operation. Each controls the other differently,
which, according to Professor Epstein, is one of the most fascinating things about the
two systems.
Conclusion
The Victorian Department of Education and Training Report, The Privilege and the Price
(August 2004), states that ‘[Principals] can make a difference in the lives of young people’
(p 11). The same conclusion was reached in a review of evidence by Leithwood, Louis,
Anderson, and Walhlstrom (2004), suggesting that successful leadership can play a highly
significant—and frequently underestimated—role in improving school learning. Despite
these encouraging conclusions, the report by Leithwood et al. (2004) also points out that
‘… linking leadership to student outcomes in a direct way is very difficult to do’ (p. 2).
The information gained from the study tour has moved my research efforts closer to
linking effective school leadership with teacher job satisfaction and student achievement.
It is suggested that when the principal better understands their information-processing
system, and in particular the operation of the experiential system, together with their
leadership style, these outcomes are likely to eventuate.
Integrating the results of the study tour with my current PhD study has the potential to:





Assist leaders move closer to fulfilling their potential and, in turn, inspire those that
follow;
Assist the work of school principals and other individuals in leadership positions,
including student leaders, teachers and heads of department;
Assist with the development of effective leadership training programs;
Facilitate the use of mentoring and coaching within education;
Contribute to the Minter Ellison Community Investment Program.
The study tour was clearly the best experience of my career so far, and I would like to
express my sincere appreciation to the former Premier of New South Wales, Mr Bob
Carr, for his vision and support of the inaugural Minter Ellison Educational Leadership
Scholarship, and to the generous support from the principal sponsor, Minter Ellison
Lawyers, and in particular Alan McArthur who was largely responsible for the firm’s
participation in the sponsorship. During my brief stay in Canberra I was fortunate to be
staying opposite the building housing Minter Ellison Lawyers. It was an honour to briefly
meet and thank Ms Elizabeth Whitelaw, current chair of Minter Ellison partners. Finally,
I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the encouragement and support given
by my principal, Dr Robert Iles at The Scots College, Sydney, and my supervisors, Dr
Guy Curtis, University of Western Sydney, and Dr Susan Colmar, University of Sydney.
References
Busch, J.R., O’Brien, T.P. & Spangler, W.D. (2005). ‘School leadership formation:
Encouraging teachers to pursue leadership positions’, SAANYS Journal, 34, (1).
Department of Education, Science and Training, Canberra. Dare to Lead project,
www.apapdc.edu.au/daretolead
Leithwood, K., Louis, K.S., Anderson, S., & Walhlstrom, K. (2004). Review of research: How
leadership influences student learning. New York: The Wallace Foundation.
Naidoo, L.J., Walters, N.E., Lord R.G. & Dubois, D.A. (2005) ‘Seeing is retrieving:
Recovering emotional content in leadership processes’, presented at the annual
convention of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (April, 2005, Los
Angeles, CA).
National College for School Leadership, www.ncsl.org.uk
Sample of leadership programs
International Placement for Headteachers,
www.britishcouncil.org/education/headteachers
Consultant Leaders Development Program, www.ncsl.org.uk/consultantleaders
Sample of resources
Distributed Leadership, Developing Creativity in the Primary School and FutureSight. FutureSight is
part of an international OECD project, Schooling for Tomorrow. This initiative explores
schools’ responses to the challenges of the 21st century, and includes a set of scenarios
that describe the future of schooling in 2020. For an up-to-date list of all publications
visit: www.ncsl.org.uk/publicatuions and www.ncsl.org.uk/researchpublications
Saulwick, I., & Muller, D. (2004). The privilege and the price: A study of principal class workload
and its impact on health and wellbeing. Final report: Victorian Department of Education and
Training.
Samyn, P. (2005) National Post, Thursday, November 3, 2005 (p. A5). First ministers set
to launch 10-year plan to lift aboriginals. Winning Free Press.