0.3 4. the need for effective change leadership standards and  (Page 2/3)

The formal development of change leaders’ knowledge, dispositions, and skills, I believe, must occur within a rigorous team-based The team-based design is absolutely essential to the success of training programs. We are all too familiar with the failure of individuals who attend training programs to transfer their learning from the training context to their work context. Training teams of change leaders who then return to their systems to apply what they learned is a significantly more effective way to transfer learning from training environments to work environments. There are, of course, other reasons for why learning is not transferred from the training environment to the work environment. An excellent summary of the research about the transfer of learning is found in a National Science Foundation report titled Transfer of Learning: Issues and Research Agenda available at (External Link) graduate-level preparation program that provides participants with learning experiences focusing on topics such as systems theory, systems thinking, systems dynamics, transformational change, change facilitation, interpersonal and group behavior in organizations, and organization theory and design, among others. Although completing a change leadership preparation program will help professionals master the art and science of systemic transformational change, effective change leadership requires a career-long devotion to learning about systemic transformational change. The standards presented below also can be used to guide change leaders’ on-going professional development.

If teams of educators in change leadership preparation programs are to satisfy these standards, it will be vitally important for these teams to become part of an organized nationwide “community of change leaders” that is endorsed and facilitated by state departments of education, local school systems, university faculty, and change partners from other sectors of American society. Being connected to an organized community of change leaders will also help each individual member of the change leadership teams to sustain his or her personal knowledge, skills, and dispositions for providing effective change leadership.

When implemented, the standards presented in Table 4 and the related indicators should ensure high quality change leadership in education by:

• Providing a clear vision of high-quality change leadership;
• Providing a framework that focuses on the requirements of transforming school systems to align with the requirements of the Information Age and beyond; and,
• Allocating resources to support change leadership priorities at the federal, state, and local levels of education.

Ten Standards for Preparing Change Leaders in Education

Ten standards for preparing change leaders in education are displayed in Table 4. Each standard has sample sub-elements identified as knowledge, dispositions, and skills (which will need to be refined before adoption). The standards were developed by reviewing the research and literature on change competencies that was summarized above and then adjusted to fit school systems.