Without a single administrator in charge, how do administrative tasks get accomplished? Doesn someone have to be the leader?
In a TEACHER-RUN SCHOOL setting all teachers must see themselves as — and act as — leaders with a common mission, vision, and set of values. The TEACHER-RUN SCHOOL can accommodate multiple leaders effectively by having a decision-making process that will consider the opinions of every member, but also allow for expeditious decisions. People whose minds are locked into the hierarchical model of “the administered organization” assume there will be a leader who is also the boss. Education does not have experience with the professional model so it is hard for people to think in terms how “the professional organization” would work in this context. When people first hear of the TEACHER-RUN SCHOOL, what immediately appears is the difference between the structure of leadership in other occupational areas using the professional partnership model and the structure of leadership in a school. Education has a single-leader model: one person, the “principal”, who is — in theory — both the profession
