Cooperation vs Collaboration School Leadership

“Are you operating at the level of cooperation or collaboration as a leadership team?”

Through the inquiry into this question most leadership teams end up realising that they are mostly cooperating rather than collaborating. This is not a bad place to be but it highlights an area that school leadership teams can work upon to fulfil on their commitment to make a difference to the children who come to their school.

The main difference between the two is that cooperation involves individuals working and contributing independently to various parts of a goal whilst collaboration involves a tight knit interdependent community / network of people working towards a common vision.

However, cooperation requires a lower level of trust, integrity and accountability than collaboration. For leadership teams to operate at the level of collaboration they need to have clarity about their vision for the school. There is a demand for candour and honest learning conversations as the leadership team members all own the school vision and values and work interdependently for the long term goals. They engage teachers, students and parents in the vision, values and what is possible and constantly work on themselves to grow their capacity to empower others.

If a school is interested in developing the collective efficacy to transform the learning and lives of all the stakeholders of the school then this is the best place to start.

• Have a vision that inspires and ignites all the school community
• Develop an environment of straight talk by people who genuinely care for one another
• Align your systems and processes so that this environment is ingrained into the DNA of the school

Your partner in learning

Dr Adrian Bertolini

P.S. If you found this interesting and want to find out more contact me or chat to David Tyson david.tyson@aeuvic.asn.au at the Australian Education Union for the workshops he is running at the AEU in 2020.

P.P.S. You can call or email me on 0413 036 382 / adrian@intuyuconsulting.com.au to talk about workshops, long term bespoke professional development, critical friend conversations, and instructional, cognitive and leadership coaching.