Leadership Succession

by Andy Hargreaves

One of the most significant events in the life of a school is a change in its
leadership. Yet few things in education succeed less than leadership succession.
Failure to care for leadership succession is sometimes a result of manipulation or
self-centeredness; but more often it is oversight, neglect, or the pressures of
crisis management that are to blame.

Succession is often mismanaged because basic assumptions about leadership are

flawed. People tend to equate leadership with administratively senior individuals
(Leithwood, Jantzi, and Steinbach 1999). Heroic leaders who turn around failing schools
stand out. Transformational leaders, rather than transformational leadership, get the
greatest attention in leadership research (Gronn 1996). However, distributed leadership—
leadership that spreads across organizations without diminishing the importance of the
principal’s role—is starting to draw more attention (Crowther et al. 2002; Spillane,
Halverson, and Diamond 2001).

Principals’ impact on their schools is often influenced greatly by their predecessors

and successors. Whether or not they are aware of it, principals stand on the shoulders of
those who went before them and lay the foundation for those who will follow. Sustain-
able, significant improvement depends on understanding and managing this process
over time (Hargreaves and Fink 2003).

Reformers and change experts rarely grasp the long-term aspects of leadership.
Quick-fix changes to turn around failing schools often exhaust teachers and the prin-
cipal, and improvement efforts are not sustained. The principal’s success in a turn-
around school may lead to his or her own rapid promotion, but can result in regres-
sion among teachers who feel abandoned by their leader or relieved when the pressure
is off.

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Hargreaves

Sustainable improvement and the contribution principals make must be measured

over many years and several principals, not just one or two. What legacy do principals
leave on their departure? What capacities have they created among students, commu-
nity, and staff? How should others build on what has been achieved? These are the core
questions of succession.

Leadership succession is not just a temporary episodic problem in individual schools,

but a pervasive crisis in the system. In the past decade, school districts have become
more demanding about replacing school principals. The exodus of principals precipi-
tated by the retirement of aging Baby Boomers and those choosing early retirement due
to standardized reform pressures are creating heightened instability in school leader-
ship (Association of California School Administrators 2001; National Clearinghouse for
Comprehensive School Reform 2002).

Several colleagues and I

have investigated leadership
succession as part of a Spencer
Foundation–funded study,
Leadership succession is Change Over Time?, in eight high
schools in the United States and
not just a temporary episodic Canada (Hargreaves, Moore et
al. 2003; Hargreaves in press).
problem in individual schools, The database for this study in-
but a pervasive crisis in the cludes more than 250 interviews
with teachers and administra-
system. tors who worked in these
schools from 1970–1990. One of
the most significant factors af-
fecting the life of a school and
the sustainability of its improve-
ment efforts, we discovered, is
leadership succession. Our results showed that successful succession depends on sound
planning, successful employment of outbound and inbound leadership knowledge, limit-
ing the frequency of succession events, and preserving leadership in the face of move-
ments toward more management.

Succession Planning
A central issue in leadership succession is whether a transition in leadership es-
tablishes continuity or provokes discontinuity—and to what extent this is deliber-
ately planned. The intersection of these possibilities creates distinct types of leader-
ship succession.

Planned continuity occurs when the assignment of a new principal reflects a well-
thought-out succession plan meant to sustain and build on the goals of a predeces-
sor. Sustained school improvement over long periods and across multiple leaders
requires carefully planned continuity. The most successful instances of planned

164 • The Educational Forum • Volume 69 • Winter 2005

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continuity were found in three purpose-built innovative schools, where insiders were
groomed to follow their leaders’ footsteps.

These included Blue Mountain School, Stewart Heights Secondary School, and Tal-
isman Park Collegiate High School. Realizing that the first crisis for an innovative school
is when the founding principal leaves (Sarason 1972), Blue Mountain’s Principal Ben
McMaster planned for his own successor from the outset. While McMaster’s imprint
was everywhere—in the school’s philosophy, organization, design, and culture—he was
alert to the possibility of an en-
suing principal importing a sig-
nificantly different philosophy.
He canvassed the district to find
an individual who would un-
derstand and commit to the
Sustainable improvement and
school’s mission and be able to the contribution principals make
maintain its momentum. After
four years, the district promoted
must be measured over many
his assistant principal, Linda years and several principals, not
White, and moved him to a
larger, high-profile school. just one or two.
White continued Blue
Mountain’s emphasis on rela-
tionships and was open, acces-
sible, and dedicated to maintaining the school’s philosophy. She stated, “I’m on the same
road and any detours I take only will be for a few moments in the overall scheme of
things before I come back onto the main road again.” She emphasized the preservation
of existing values, rather than the creation of new ones.

Planned continuity occurred only in the most innovative schools and in cases of
isolated transitions. More often than not, leadership successions were intended to create
discontinuity—to move a school in a different direction than under its predecessors. A
new principal assigned to turn around a failing school, give a jolt to a “cruising school”
(Stoll and Fink 1996, 86), or implement a top-down reform agenda all fit this category.
Several leadership succession events in schools we studied were ones of planned discon-
tinuity. They represented efforts to get complacent or drifting schools to meet their stu-
dents’ needs more effectively.

Bill Andrews was appointed to Stewart Heights Secondary School in 1998. Once a
small school serving a middle-class population, Stewart Heights was now surrounded
by urban development and reflected increasing cultural diversity. Student demograph-
ics were changing, but the long-serving staff stayed the same, pining nostalgically for
the days when they had been a small village school.

Andrews’s broad experience and knowledge of the school district, gained through
two prior principal positions and time in the district office, allowed him to move quickly

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Hargreaves

and confidently to shake the school out of its historical lethargy. Andrews articulated
firm expectations for staff members’ performance and student behavior and demon-
strated that change was possible. When guidance personnel complained that student
schedules could not be completed by the beginning of school, Andrews personally at-
tended to the timetables of more than 80 students, modeling that problems were from
then on solvable. He aggressively addressed management and building issues, making
public spaces more welcoming, and mobilized the staff behind a coherent set of school
goals. He was not reluctant to initiate and engage in debates among staff members. For
example, to heighten staff members’ awareness of student needs, he presented teachers
with survey data showing that 95 percent of staff members were satisfied with the school
while only 35 percent of students and 25 percent of parents were satisfied. This high-
lighted a common problem that staff members had to solve together. An experienced
teacher explained:

He brought a willingness
to think about kids, to do
things for kids, and to make
kids look good, as opposed to
managing the status quo. I

Successfulleadersoftenare think for a long time, this

school had a good reputation
removed prematurely from . . . and so it just went along.
In the meantime, its reputa-
schools they are improving to tion in the community kind of
mount a rescue in another school went away, but nobody
within this building really
facing a crisis. realized it. I think with the
principal’s arrival, he knew
the problems, and he set out
to deal with them and to make
changes. I think for the most
part, it’s been good.

Andrews pushed the school a long way forward during his brief tenure. Parent and
student satisfaction levels soared. Plants and benches made the school feel less like a
factory and more like a community. The School Improvement Team gained support for
improving student learning. In this and in similar schools, planned discontinuity served
its intended purpose of bringing about needed change.

Planned discontinuity was effective in shaking up schools in our study, but not at
making changes stick. This succession strategy can yield rapid results, but leadership
needs time to consolidate the new culture and heal the wounds that disruption inevita-
bly creates. Because of his quick and visible success, Andrews was promoted to another
position after less than three years. Other leaders of planned discontinuity in our study
also were transferred before their existing work was complete. The result was constant
change throughout the school system, but little lasting improvement.

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Most cases of succession ended up being a paradoxical mix of unplanned discontinu-

ity and continuity: discontinuity with the achievements of a leader’s immediate prede-
cessor, and continuity with (or regression to) the mediocre state of affairs preceding that
predecessor. Successful leaders are often removed prematurely from schools they are
improving to mount a rescue in another school facing a crisis. Much less thought is
given to the appointment of their successors.

Charmaine Watson, a first-

time principal, was selected to
head up Talisman Park Colle-
giate High School in 1995. Situ-
ated in an affluent, well-estab-
Failure to care for leadership
lished neighborhood, Talisman succession is sometimes a result of
Park’s largely middle-class stu-
dent population had become
manipulation or self-centeredness;
more diverse during the past but more often it is oversight,
decade. Watson’s predecessor
had pushed Talisman Park’s neglect, or the pressures of crisis
teachers to confront school
change by advocating an inclu-
management that are to blame.
sive approach to planning and
problem solving that involved
students.

When her predecessor was suddenly transferred, Watson was rushed in to replace
him. Watson had little opportunity to interact with staff members before assuming her
new role. Having taught at Talisman Park earlier in her career, she understood the school’s
history and culture and did not hesitate to try to make changes that would benefit all
students.

Watson set out to democratize the school by taking major decisions to staff members
rather than previously powerful department heads. She initiated a whole-school strate-
gic plan that focused on improving assessment strategies for student work, engaging
students in instructional technology, and involving parents and others in the commu-
nity in developing school goals. Watson participated with staff members in professional
development activities and encouraged teachers to diversify their teaching to meet chang-
ing student needs.

Though most staff members appeared supportive of Watson’s approach, a small but
influential group of staff members resisted her initiatives. Though she had the credibil-
ity of teaching at Talisman Park during its glory years and was seen by most staff mem-
bers as a capable leader, she was only partly successful in instilling her vision of an
inclusive learning community. Watson had not yet become an insider and, unfortunately,
never got the chance to lead from the inside out. In response to a number of unexpected
retirements, the district abruptly (and from Watson’s point of view, traumatically) trans-
ferred her to a school that was experiencing leadership problems.

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The district replaced Watson with Ivor Megson, a former assistant principal. Megson’s
arrival coincided with significant government reforms impacting teachers. These reform
initiatives and teachers’ resentment toward them forced Megson to move away from the
school’s reculturing program
and fall back on the traditionally
influential department heads to
implement the reform agenda.

Stronger leadership The results achieved from

Watson’s reculturing work were
cultures that make undone in a matter of months.

planning, selection, and At Stewart Heights Sec-

ondary School, Jerry West re-
rotation more effective are placed Bill Andrews, who had
needed. been catapulted into a super-
intendent’s position. West had
no time to establish himself as a
leader and little opportunity to
acquire knowledge about the
school or his new role. In a
school that had three principals in four-and-a-half years and an escalating government
reform agenda, West elected to make no changes in his first semester and build relation-
ships one at a time, leading to a climate of apparent inertia. Departmental power struc-
tures reasserted themselves to fill the void, and staff members set about correcting stu-
dent behavior rather than continuing Andrews’s commitment to whole school change.

West’s promotion occurred simultaneously with the peak pressure to implement the
government standards agenda. He stated:

Sometimes the rules change, day-by-day, in terms of what we can and can’t do.
As we were making our own changes, moving forward in the direction that we
believed we needed to go, other changes and outside pressures were imposed on us as
well. So, things that you want to do have to take a back seat sometimes, and that can
be quite frustrating.

Though Andrews’s take-charge style significantly improved Stewart Heights, he

undoubtedly irritated and sometimes alienated some staff members, but the force of his
leadership and personality kept pushing them forward. But Andrews’s short tenure and
premature replacement left his mission truncated, and the cracks he had opened wid-
ened into chasms when he left. Rapid rotation of leadership, poor succession planning,
and the onset of an overwhelming and undersupported reform agenda undermined
two years of considerable improvement. After just three years, West himself was named
principal of another school.

Our study pointed out that leadership succession often is undermined by poor plan-
ning. Recent success is discontinued, improvement gains are eliminated, and earlier,

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more mediocre patterns are reestablished. School administrators often believe that im-
provement goals can be achieved by moving outstanding principals around a district
and replacing them with less experienced or effective leaders who will maintain the
gains that have been made. This study showed that, in most instances, these panic ap-
pointments and rotational practices lead to a perpetual cycle in which schools move
forward and backward with depressing regularity.

Clearly, better succession planning is needed. Districts could begin by requiring that
succession issues be incorporated into every school improvement plan. Stronger leader-
ship cultures that make planning, selection, and rotation more effective also are needed.
Poor planning, however, is not
the only source of succession
problems. Three other issues
also are important: leaders’
knowledge of improvement and
succession processes, frequency
Charismatic leaders often
of succession, and the changing convince staff members to
nature of leadership in times of
large-scale reform. believe in their mystical
qualities rather than in
Inbound and Outbound
Knowledge themselves.
Wenger (1998) described
several “trajectories” leaders can
take as they move through their
organization—inbound, insider,
and outbound. Drawing on Wenger’s work, we found that leaders use three kinds of
knowledge during the succession process.

Inbound knowledge is leadership knowledge needed to make one’s mark on a particu-

lar school or turn it around. Insider knowledge to improve schools is gained after becom-
ing known, trusted, and accepted within the community. Outbound knowledge is what is
needed to preserve past successes, keep improvement going, and leave a legacy.

Our research data showed that school systems are preoccupied with inbound knowl-
edge. This pattern is common among charismatic leaders. Lord Byron Secondary School
was established in 1974 as one of the most innovative schools in Canada. A charismatic
principal, Ward Bond, was appointed to set its distinctive direction. When he left after just
three years, Bond’s adoring teachers acknowledged that he was a “hard act to follow” and
that his successors could never quite live up to his legend, therefore beginning a long pro-
cess of “attrition of change” (Fink 1999). Charismatic leaders often convince staff members
to believe in their mystical qualities rather than in themselves. Their inbound knowledge
can inspire great change, but that change cannot be sustained after they have gone.

Inbound knowledge is also overemphasized in circumstances of planned disconti-

nuity. Bill Andrews and Charmaine Watson fulfilled their district’s mandate to turn their

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“cruising” schools around. Their districts, however, did not allow them to remain long
enough to solidify a new culture and embed their improvements. In the most recent
years of our study, almost no principal stayed long enough (five years or longer) to
acquire the status of trusted insider.

Failing schools are prone to quick-fix obsessions with inbound knowledge. Sheldon
School in New York currently faces “in need of improvement” designation under No
Child Left Behind legislation. Once the jewel of its district, Sheldon went into decline
following race riots in the 1970s, the subsequent flight of European-American students
to the suburbs, the establishment of a magnet school that attracted Sheldon’s best stu-
dents, and the loss of connection to its community when the magnet initiative forced a
school on the opposite side of the city to close and bus some of its most difficult students
into Sheldon (Baker and Foote in press).

In the school’s better days,

There is a fundamental flaw of one of Sheldon’s principals,

Len Adomo, was regarded as
autocratic. Blocked from in-
inbound, top-down forcefulness as volvement in important deci-
a succession strategy to rectify sions, teachers turned to their
union as an outlet for their
school underperformance. Instead frustrations. The more frac-
of inspiring improvement, this tious the union became, the
more Adomo dug in. Virtually
strategy only entrenches every issue became a bone of
contention. As staff members
resistance. became more militant and stu-
dents became more demand-
ing, the district escalated the
conflict by appointing principals they thought would stand up to the union. Each
successive, autocratic principal reinforced the teachers’ militancy so that
“Sheldonism” became a synonym for unbridled union resistance to change. This
standoff resulted in the school’s almost complete inability to address its changing
student population. This example shows the fundamental flaw of inbound, top-down
forcefulness as a succession strategy to rectify school underperformance. Instead of
inspiring improvement, this strategy only entrenches resistance.

Outbound knowledge was considered in only three of the innovative schools in the
Spencer Project: Durant, Lord Byron, and Blue Mountain. Each groomed an assistant
principal as a likely successor to the incumbent principal and as someone who would
continue promoting the leader’s and school’s vision. Creating distributed leadership
(Spillane, Halverson, and Diamond 2001) added to these principals’ successful outbound
trajectories.

In the majority of schools, however, the school improvement sustainability and re-
form initiatives were repeatedly undermined by excessive emphasis on inbound

170 • The Educational Forum • Volume 69 • Winter 2005

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knowledge of leadership. Principals who are making strides in school improvement

need to remain in their schools for more than five years if their changes are going to
stick—otherwise schools become like early flying machines: repeatedly crashing just
before take off.

Accelerating Succession

The quest for future leadership

Another factor affecting
succession success is the fre-
quency of cumulative succes-
sions. Demographically driven must be defined less by how to
retirement, the difficulty of re-
taining leaders in urban
rotate principals between
schools, and the popular prac- schools and more by how to
tice of moving around princi-
pals to plug the leaks in failing retain them when schools are
schools mean that principal doing well.
turnover is accelerating dra-
matically. Talisman Park had
six principals in its first 68
years, yet another five in the
subsequent 14 years. Stewart Heights had just four principals in 28 years, then three
leaders in quick succession in the next five. Lord Byron School had four principals in
its first 14 years, then just as many in the most recent five.

This revolving door breeds staff cynicism that subverts long-term, sustainable im-
provement. Jerry West at Stewart Heights observed, “It’s only been one-plus year [of his
time in the school], but teachers are already asking how long I’m going to be here.” The
quest for future leadership must be defined less by how to rotate principals between
schools and more by how to retain them when schools are doing well.

The Changing Nature of Leadership

Growing teacher cynicism about the principal position stems not only from increas-
ing leadership changes, but also from changes in the nature of leadership. A department
head at Talisman Park who had worked under five different principals spoke for many
when he said:

Principals in the ’70s and ’80s were totally committed to the overall program of
the school. When they went into the hiring process, they knew exactly what they
wanted and what they needed. Their number one focus was the school. As time went
on and principals changed, the principal was less interested in the school and more
interested in his own personal growth.

During the three decades covered by the Change Over Time? study, leadership has
changed a great deal. Until the mid- to late-’70s, leaders were remembered as larger-
than-life characters who knew people in the school, were closely identified with it, and
stayed around for many years to see things through.

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Hargreaves

By the mid- to late-’90s, leaders were seen as anonymous managers who had less
visibility in and attachment to the school, seemed to be more wedded to the system or
their own careers and, because of accelerating succession, rarely remained long enough
to ensure their initiatives would last. The pressures on urban principals by No Child Left
Behind, where one of the prescribed options for repeated failure to improve involves
removal of the principal, only will exacerbate these tendencies. Threats to sustainable
improvement posed by poorly managed leadership succession raise fundamental ques-
tions about the nature of educational leadership.

Our research suggested that the recent standardization agenda has contributed
to an emerging model of leadership that is reactive, compliant, and managerial. This
model deters potential leaders from becoming principals who can inspire learning
communities that promote higher learning for all students. Depleted pools of out-
standing leadership limit options at times of succession. Better leaders belong in and
are attracted to systems that let leaders lead. Sustainability of improvement and lead-
ership requires less rather than more micromanagement and standardization in edu-
cational reform.

Conclusion
There are many ways to improve leadership succession in education.
• Succession needs to be planned thoughtfully and ethically, and be an integral part
of every school and district-wide improvement plan. Deeper, wider pools of lead-
ership talent must be created so that succession issues are easier to resolve.
• Distributing leadership makes succession less dependent on the talents or frail-
ties of particular individuals. It is not equally shared leadership—it may be
more or less shared depending on the situation.
• Leaders are not all the same. When a good leader leaves an organization, it
should wobble a bit and there should and will be a sense of loss. But temporary
unsteadiness should not turn into widespread feelings of despair or institu-
tional states of collapse. Schools need to cushion the departure of key leaders
and develop leadership capacities to provide a pool of growing talent from which
future successors may be selected.
• From the first day of their appointment, leaders need to give thought to the
leadership capacity they will build and legacies they will leave. Incorporating
succession issues into leadership training and development programs will help
them do this.
• The alarming rise in rates of succession should be reversed immediately, and
principals should be kept in schools for longer than five years when their im-
provement efforts are doing well.

For any of this to make a difference, we must pull back from the precipice to which
overly standardized reform has brought us, where motivational leaders wedded to the
long-term success of their schools are being reduced to managerial vassals of a standard-
ized system that moves them around the accelerating carousel of principal succession.
Sustainable leadership depends on more than improved succession planning. It comes
down to a battle for the soul of leadership itself.

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Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at

Boston College. He taught in primary schools and lectured at several
English universities, including Oxford, before joining the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education in Canada, where he cofounded and
directed the International Center for Educational Change. His books
include Changing Teachers, Changing Times (1994) and Teaching in
the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age of Insecurity (2003).
Hargreaves is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi Laureate Chapter.

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