My Creed as a Manager

I am not a manager (though I was one in another life). And this isn't really my creed, it's an adaptation of the table found in Cranston. But it's a pretty good starting point, it seems to me.

Leadership and Culture
  • I will retain only successes from the now and past.
  • I will rely on community attitudes and values determine what is best for all.
  • I will encourage multiple shared leadership distributed through wider communities.
  • I will encourage vigorous debate of all policies, particularly by those implementing them.
  • I will value and reward difference and diversity in thinking, attitudes and ideas
  • I will foster quality, intellect, leadership, challenge, forward thinking and new mind-sets
  • I will encourage radical ideas that depart from past practices that improve outcomes.
Policy
  • I will focus on strategic policy development only, while local community developed policies take precedence.
  • I will encourage communities to schools challenge the centre's policies if they are inappropriate for their community
  • I will enable communities to determine all operational matters that affect them
  • I will encourage more rapid implementation of policy priorities
  • I will recognize community differences and accommodate them in policy development.
Relationships and accountability
  • The purpose of my work is to add to the value of work in the communities
  • Innovative ideas are welcomed and supported from everywhere, especially from individuals and their communities
  • Communities hold clear accountabilities for outcomes, because they have control over the resources that matter
  • Community determined social justice and equity priorities are embraced and funded
  • Communities hold accountability for funding of schools
  • Communities in collaboration with the centre determine appropriate accountabilities.
Resources
  • I will support a bottom-up global approach to budgeting adopted system-wide
  • Community needs are funded first; funding for the bureaucracy follows, if, and as, it is needed
  • Communities determine the on-going viability and operation of operations
  • Communities (individual and clusters) hold control (and accountability) for their human resources
  • The best salaries and perks are awarded to people in the commuties (as allocated by the communities)
  • Staffing is characterised by performance and quality.
Cranston is mostly talking about schools and administrations; I have replaced this with references to individuals and communities (which may be organizational units, informal communities, or whatever). The model holds, and, I think, holds up quite well.

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