Building a developmental culture of feedback

Abstract

Purpose This paper draws from more than 25 years of research with aspiring and practicing educational leaders to present six strategies for building a culture of feedback in schools, teams, districts, professional learning opportunities, and other educational settings. These strategies reflect key elements of the authors’ new, developmental approach to feedback. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Through the lens of adult developmental theory, the authors highlight foundational learnings from open-ended survey research with 14 educational leaders about their experiences giving and receiving feedback, and prior qualitative, mixed-method, and longitudinal research with principals, assistant principals, teachers, superintendents, and other educational leaders. Findings The authors share six developmentally oriented strategies for establishing trust and building conditions for authentic, generative feedback: finding value in mistakes, modeling vulnerability, caring for the (inter)personal, clarifying expectations, sharing developmental ideas, and building an infrastructure for collaboration. Practical implications This work has implications for leadership and leadership preparation, especially given contemporary emphases on collaboration and high-stakes evaluations as tools for ongoing improvement, enhancing professional capital, and internal, individual, and system-wide capacity building. Originality/value Because a developmental perspective has been noticeably missing from the wider feedback literature and leadership preparation curricula, this work extends and enhances tenets from different fields (e.g. business, developmental psychology, educational leadership and educational leadership preparation), while also addressing urgent calls for educational reform; leadership preparation, development, and practice; and professional capital building.

Transformational Leadership fostering Open Innovation: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

“…Moreover, Carmeli et al, (2010) discovered that transformative leadership is positively associated to a culture of innovation and creativity, i.e., a developmental culture. This generates a culture that supports innovation, welcomes new ideas, and encourages lifelong learning (Bass and Riggio, 2006;Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano, 2018). According to Eisenbeiss et al, (2008), through the above-mentioned mechanisms, transformational leaders cultivate deep bonds with their followers, promote open lines of communication, and involve staff in decision-making processes, which fosters a psychologically comfortable environment and stimulates knowledge sharing, teamwork, and cooperation.…”

Explaining variation in the implementation of observational processes by school leaders: evidence from a Tennessee-based researcher–practitioner partnership

“…For example, the school cultures created or maintained by school leaders mediate teacher perceptions of the legitimacy of evaluation processes (Kim et al. , 2019) and the extent to which teachers respond to post-observation feedback productively (Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano, 2018). More broadly, Donaldson and Firestone (2021) argue that the success of teacher evaluation depends on the social relationships developed among school leaders and teachers in the evaluation context at a school level.…”