Apologies, this was not posted yesterday due to illness!
Module 9: Whakataurite i ngā Huringa (Navigating Change in Education): This module equips you with the knowledge and skills to effectively navigate and lead change within the education system, fostering a culture of continuous improvement while ensuring the wellbeing of staff and ākonga.
“Titiro whakamuri, kōkiri whakamua”
“Look back to the past, strive for the future.”
Due: 8th September
Module Objectives:
- Understand the change process.
- Develop change management strategies.
- Build a shared understanding of the need for change.
- Lead and support staff through the change process.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of change initiatives.
A Harvard University study published twenty years ago, and various other research sources, such as the more recent study by David Leonard and Claude Coltea from Gallup, (published in Business Journal in 2013), estimate that 70% of all change initiatives in schools fail. As recently as 2016 in New Zealand this statistic was still quoted as relevant to understanding sustaining change in the presentation by Randy Pennington, Business Strategist and author, to NZSTA and available here: https://vimeopro.com/nzsta/govtalks/video/145795736.
The National Aspiring Leaders programme is committed to supporting delegates and ensuring growth in leadership skills, in this case by reflection on your role in change practice in your school. This will be achieved by supporting your exploration of change research sources against your current experience, particularly of change management and change leadership.
Reading: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YcwSPqd5k3yWUMe1yFIvEz3-ulMqwQJE/view?ts=689bc6d8
Task: Reflect on this reading in light of your own practice and discuss your reflections with your learning partner. Post on the forum as a partnership, your joint reflections. You may use some of the following prompts to support your reflections:
- Understanding of change management vs change leadership
- Essential skills for leaders of change
- Key reflections/learnings about change leadership
- Creating a culture which supports change implementation
- What I need to develop further
Assessment:
- Completion of reading.
- Discussion with learning partner(s).
- Participation in the online forum discussion.
- Submission of reflection on the forum.
10 Responses
My reflection around understanding of change management vs change leadership:
Not Creating a Powerful Enough Guiding Coalition: A successful transformation requires a powerful team of key individuals from different levels and departments who are committed to the change. If the guiding coalition lacks sufficient power or authority, opposition can easily stop the change.
My understanding of change management vs change leadership really comes down to the beginning stages of leading change and managing change. In my own experiences, developing the purpose or the “why” with all stake holders really does help to drive the change process successfully. If all people are involved in this, the momentum really gets going and stays going when people understand “why”. The management and leading of this change is easier, but this is when the ‘leading’ parts comes in and plays a bigger role then just managing.
One part from the reading that really stuck out for me was not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition. A successful transformation requires a powerful team of key individuals from different levels and departments who are committed to the change. It is so important to develop a strong team of like minded individuals to help drive this change, check in on team members, collect feedback and pass on the good feedback/celebrate the wins, and provide the constructive feedback, coach people alongside them, and monitor the progress (like the change management cycle).
In my own experiences, I have also realised that part of leading change is identifying barriers and removing these efficiently. As people become empowered to act, real or perceived obstacles, like misaligned organisational structures, systems, and resisters, must be addressed and removed/coached or re aligned to prevent the effort from stalling or the drive from slowing down. It is a leaders job to identify these and also coach members, teams, staff etc. through this.
The parts of the reading that resonated with me ‘Change, by definition, requires creating a new system, which in turn always demands leadership.’ At my school Year 4, 5 and 6 have started the BSLA programme this year. This has changed and improved our Reading programme. The Year 5 and 6 Team Leaders as well as myself (Year 4 Team Leader) have met with Ingrid our Deputy Principal regularly, especially at the start when we were beginning the BSLA assessments and when we were starting to implement this new programme across our year levels. Therefore this new system has certainly demanded leadership. In Term 4 Years 4, 5 and 6 will undergo training in the implementation of the new Maths curriculum. Making sure we make changes to our learning programmes gradually has been key to our success but we have needed our Senior Leadership team to recognise the importance of this.
Another part of the reading that I found interesting was ‘the first draft comes mostly from a single individual. It is usually a bit blurry, at least initially. But after the coalition works at it for 3 or 5 or even 12 months, something much better emerges through their tough analytical thinking and a little dreaming.’ This part stood out to me because it made me think about how I would like to grow in my role as Team Leader and in the future take on a larger leadership role across the school or a school. Having spoken to both Deputy Principals at my school about this goal, I have been given some ideas about how I can achieve this. The first goal is to see House Sport becoming evident next term. The other goal is the potential to get behind a new programme next year. Although these might sound like some small steps it is my way of working towards becoming a Deputy Principal in the future. Gradual steps and a little bit of a blurry vision actually can go a very long way when you start communicating with the right people as they become more aware of how they can support you in this growth and find opportunities for you. Recently I was also able to meet with our Principal to discuss my future direction at our school and making him become aware of what my goals were allowed me to be heard and to increase awareness for my manager.
Key reflections/learnings about change leadership…
Kotter distinguishes between change management and change leadership. Change management focuses on processes, systems, and controls that maintain day-to-day operations during change, including planning, budgeting, scheduling, and problem-solving. Change leadership, in contrast, focuses on creating a vision, aligning people, and motivating them to achieve transformation. It is about inspiring individuals through uncertainty, overcoming resistance, and fostering a shared sense of purpose.
Reflecting on this distinction, teachers have recently faced multiple changes, including the curriculum refresh, structured literacy changes,and a new maths program. Implementing these has been challenging, particularly when visible leadership from curriculum leaders has been lacking. This highlights Kotter’s point that change requires a guiding coalition, a clear vision, and active leadership to maintain momentum.
My experience with recent change initiatives has shown that they succeed when there is strong leadership, but progress stalls without it. For example, this year, the implementation of our structured maths program slowed due to the absence of a curriculum lead and limited professional development, making it challenging for me to drive change as a middle leader. In contrast, Structured Literacy has been driven by a school-wide lead and multiple focus teams, providing direction, accountability, and shared purpose, which has sustained momentum and ensured success. The change journey has been exciting and empowering.
Key learnings I will take into practice include creating visible short-term wins, consistently communicating the vision, and actively removing barriers so staff feel empowered to embrace change. I also recognise the importance of embedding new practices into school culture for long-term sustainability, rather than assuming a change will automatically last once introduced.
One striking reflection is how urgency serves as the foundation of change. Without a collective belief that “business-as-usual is unacceptable,” people retreat into comfort zones. It’s easy to underestimate the need to communicate urgency clearly and repeatedly. This step isn’t about manufacturing panic but rather inspiring people to see that staying the same is riskier than moving forward. Especially in the education sector where the needs of our students are constantly changing every year.
Another insight is the importance of coalitions over individuals. Many organisations lean too heavily on a single “hero” leader, but deep, lasting change requires a team with influence, credibility, and trust. Leadership here isn’t about authority alone, it’s about building shared ownership.
The danger of undercommunicating the vision also stands out. Leaders may assume they’ve been clear, but if employees don’t see consistency between words and actions, cynicism grows. This made me reflect on the idea that leadership is lived out through daily behaviors, not just strategy documents or town hall meetings. “Walking the talk” becomes essential.
The need for short-term wins reinforces the psychology of motivation. Change can feel like a marathon, but people need milestones to keep going. Celebrating these wins isn’t just about recognition, it’s a way of maintaining momentum and credibility and keeping morale up.
After completing the reading, I am choosing to reflect on the following point
-Essential skills for leaders of change.
Many of the essential skills resonated with me, as well as the common errors that can occur.
In my own experience it is important to have a guiding group rather than one person leading the change. Building a team who is passionate, has expertise in this particular area and strong relationships with other staff members is key when bringing about change.
This team can then help to communicate the vision and have conversations about the why behind the vision. The last essential skill that I resonated with was empowering action by ensuring we have listened to and removed as many barriers in the way of bringing about change. To ensure this happens it’s important to start with whole staff discussions about the proposed change and identifying potential barriers while coming up with possible solutions. Having been on both sides of this (leading change and being a part of the change) it often feels less like change is being imposed on you and more like it’s happening with you, therefore people are more likely to be open minded about it and feel supported. From here a clear and realistic plan can be created.
We (Aimee, Suzanne and Elleen) found from the article:
It links to essential skills for leaders of change that need a specific feedback loop. Vision isn’t top down, and then it is fleshed out. It is essential for leadership to implement change aligned with the vision, informed by feedback. I think we need feedback loops built.
What has made the biggest change is learning how to question for clarity and be more confident in this. We have learnt that it is okay to question. Helping us know the why.
We discussed how we want everyone on the waka to change with everyone, and not just the staff. Change is not done to people but with people.
We reflected on the early adopters and how others need to see it in action. Recognise that we need to recognise the different ways people acknowledge and buy into change.
how can we identify the barrier to change? And how taking barriers can help someone’s cognitive load. And stopping the obstacles to stop the vision from being successful.
Change management, culture, and time are interconnected.
Leaders need to make the change first and model it first. Aimee created videos of her working with the children and the evidence and success of what she was asking her team to do. Link to online video around gaining credibility by leaders starting change first.
Leaders need to walk the talk.
Aimee talked about hearing from Jo Robson, and her takeaway was “how change leadership is a behavioural and values-based approach”. Elleen also talked about how Jo talks a lot about implementing and sustaining change.
The importance of celebrating the small wins to help with everyone’s well-being. These are great times to also look back on why you were successful and share this success with others.
Our next step is to:
Identify and eliminate barriers to change. For example, start the staff meeting by allowing everyone 5 minutes to complete the survey.
Need to look into ways to communicate more effectively, and different forms of evidence need to be done 3-10times.
Celebrate small wins to help build on and further develop the vision. And an opportunity for a feedback loop.
Leanne Sharman & Siouxzan Barlow
Upon jointly reflecting on the Harvard Business Review article a few key points resonated with us.
1. Understanding of change management vs change leadership
We can see change management and change leadership are incredibly interdependent on each other for long term, sustained change to occur. Change management is the systems and processes that are put in place to support staff navigating and embracing the changes. Effective planning and communication is key while having strategies to minimise resistance at key points of the process. Change leadership is the person or people driving the change management process. They drive this transformation, inspire teams and shape the culture while guiding their staff through the uncertainty of this process. We connected with the reminder that often leaders talk about what matters to them but fail to get buy-in because it doesn’t connect with what matters to others. Resistance isn’t usually about people not wanting to do a good job and is more often genuine fear or concern. If one person feels that way, chances are others do too. Another key message was that as leaders, we have to go first. If those we’re trying to influence don’t see me changing, they won’t change either.
Essential skills for leaders of change
From reflecting on this article we see two key skills needed for leaders of change. These are the technical skills to guide the process and strong interpersonal skills to assist people in the organisation to navigate the changes and assisting them in seeing the vision. Digging deeper, an effective leader of change would be a strategic thinker, have a high level of emotional intelligence, great problem solving and communication skills. They would also be resilient and be able to pivot and adapt during the change management journey.
Creating a culture that supports change
We’ve also realised how important it is to focus on the conditions that support change, not just the technical aspects. Celebrating progress, listening to concerns, and continually revisiting the why behind the change are key to building trust. Being intentional about workload and showing teachers that the PLG’s work was designed to reduce stress, not add to it, made a real difference. That helped shift the change from “another thing to do” to something worthwhile and achievable.
Thank you, ladies. You’ve highlighted a key insight that often gets overlooked: resistance to change is rarely about laziness; it’s about genuine fear or concern. This empathetic understanding is at the heart of effective change leadership. Your realisation that leaders must “go first” and model the change themselves is spot on. It builds trust and demonstrates a genuine commitment to the new direction.
My experience in leading change has shown me that two common pitfalls are closely intertwined: “Not Establishing a Great Enough Sense of Urgency” and “Not Systematically Planning For and Creating Short-Term Wins.” While a leader’s job is to see and communicate the bigger picture—the ultimate “why” behind a change—that vision alone is not enough to motivate a team. A grand vision creates the initial energy and urgency, but a lack of a clear path forward can quickly dissipate that momentum.
The bigger picture is only powerful when it’s broken down into a series of clear, actionable steps. This is where short-term wins become essential. They serve as tangible “goal posts” that give the team a sense of direction and progress. Without a concrete plan that includes expectations and timeframes, the urgency to change can feel overwhelming rather than motivating. A detailed plan ensures that everyone knows their role and the next immediate objective, preventing people from feeling lost or left behind in the change process.
Ultimately, leading change is about more than just communicating a destination; it’s about providing the map and celebrating each milestone along the way. By systematically planning for and achieving short-term wins, a leader can sustain the initial sense of urgency and build the collective momentum needed to make the bigger vision a reality.
Melody, this is a fantastic reflection that clearly articulates the critical relationship between urgency and short-term wins in leading change. You’ve identified a common but powerful pitfall: the grand vision, without a clear roadmap, can feel overwhelming rather than motivating.