The Politics of Leadership Coaching for Assistant Principals

• In Event: 52.022 - Issues in "Middle Space" School Leadership: Creating an Agenda for Assistant Principal Research

Abstract

Purpose
Leadership coaching has become a popular professional development strategy for school leaders and yet the field of coaching continues to suffer from a dearth of empirical research. While researchers have spent considerable time articulating the components of effective coaching models (Barnett & O’Mahony, 2008; Silver, et al., 2009; Lochmiller & Silver, 2010), describing program structures (Lochmiller, 2014a), estimating coaching costs (Lochmiller, 2014b), and defining the potential impact of coaching on leaders’ practice (Goff, et al., 2014). In this paper, I report results of a qualitative study which examined the support provided to assistant principals.
Theoretical Framework and Mode of Inquiry/ Data Sources
For this study, I used micro-politics (Hargreaves and Skelton, 2012) as a theoretical perspective to make sense of the data I collected through repeated interviews with the study participants.
Findings
Findings suggest that coaching support become a political endeavor for the leadership coaches on at least three levels. Coaches were thus required to navigate the relational politics that existed within these relationships. First, coaches were required to navigate the political dimensions associated with the school principal. Principals established working conditions, set professional expectations, assigned duties, and sought to influence the coaching relationship by “checking-in” and setting professional learning goals. These issues tended to relate to the exercise of supervisory authority and the manifestation of power. Second, coaches were required to navigate the political dimensions found within relationships between assistant principals. Assistant principals often competed with administrators who were receiving coaching. These relationships appeared significant when some of the assistant principals did not receive or participate in the coaching project. Competition stemmed, in part, from the administrators feelings of performance inadequacy. Finally, coaches also navigated political tensions that emerged between their coachees (i.e., assistant principals) and the teachers they supervised. Within these issues, trust appeared to be a significant factor. Few of the assistant principals had established trusting relationships with teachers at the time the coaching relationship began and so struggled to implement strategies recommended by the leadership coaches.
The combination of these factors significantly shaped the coaches work with the assistant principals. Coaches were required to adjust their practice in response to the political conditions. These adjustments largely entailed “opening up” their coaching practice. Specifically, coaches met with principals to discuss their coachees progress, engaged other assistant principals in group coaching sessions to mitigate competition, and joining their coachees during classroom walk throughs and in PLC meetings to establish rapport with classroom teachers.
Scholarly Significance
The findings from this study suggest that the confidential nature of coaching relationships may require further elaboration when coaching assistant principals. The findings further suggest that coaches who work with assistant principals may require further training and preparation in order to mitigate political factors. Indeed, future research focused on the micro-political factors associated with coaching would greatly strengthen the field’s collective understanding of the dynamics that may influence coaching practice and thus predict its overall effectiveness.

Author

• Chad Lochmiller, Indiana University