Introduction
Suppose all the principles and theories that identify the cultural & context alignment as essential to successful leadership are true. In that case, it is corollary that its lack contributes to leadership failure. The side effects deriving from leadership misalignment with culture & context are a broad and transversal topic, and their manifestations can be noticed at both intangible and tangible levels. With reference to the IB® environment, these two dimensions of evidence can be detected in the following areas:
- Relationships with the school community: staff, students, families, and local institutions
- Students’ outcomes
- IB® compulsory milestones
- The whole business
Body
The bottom line of any international head’s mission is to promote and ensure productive relationships among culturally diverse groups within the community (Walker and Riordan, 2010); within international schools, this comprises the staff, the students and their families, and the local institutions. According to Allan and Drake (cited in Hammad and Shah, 2018), international schools are constantly characterized by cultural dissonance, that is, the frequent inconsistency that emerges in scenarios based on cross-cultural encounters (Walker and Riordan, 2010). More specifically, unsettling situations occur when people experience practices that are in contrast with their personal beliefs, ideas and values that, most likely, may lead to personal and organizational confusion and conflicts. Furthermore, the global profile of IB® schools is very often perceived as a cultural threat by the hosting country and the local community (Allan Walker, 2010). Eventually, it can be concluded that bridging boundaries across cultures is the starting scenario for IB® leaders; therefore, any failure to deal properly with the natural cultural dissonance would only lead to overall relational jeopardy.
Educational literature also states that effective leadership, which is largely driven by the intentional process of building a productive school’s culture and climate, significantly impacts students’ achievements and social and emotional development. Likewise, it affects teachers’ professional growth, well-being, and retention, ultimately affecting the overall quality of school life (Adams, 2017). Considering these observations indisputable, it is self-evident that a toxic school culture, that is, deficient in culture and context harmony, is responsible for relational and academic failures.
Consolidated multilingualism is intended as the key to International Mindedness, which is a “desired quality for students and schools” (Hacking, 2016) for cultural understanding. The importance of this concept is reinforced by the sociolinguistic literature that ascribes most minority students’ school failure to the cultural and linguistic disjuncture between home and school (Villegas, 1988). When, in fact, the language used at home differs from the classroom one, children may experience setbacks in learning opportunities unless the teaching is guided by an adequate language policy that considers the variety of cultural backgrounds within the community. Instead, the language of instruction and the one spoken at home are the same, yet subtle differences in dialects and cognitive styles may result in severe misunderstanding, as observed by Au and Mason (cited in Villegas, 1988).
Achieving the IB® milestones – candidacy, authorization, evaluation – is specific evidence of IB® leadership effectiveness as well as the diligent application of the Standards and Practices that embrace the IB® mission and philosophy. Recalling the specific IB® aim to “create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect” (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2005), it is reasonably understandable that any cultural and contextual misalignments in leadership would fail not only the IB® school certifications but, most importantly, the IB supreme aim of “education for a better world” (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2005).
If, on one end, IB® heads must comply with standardized practices globally, their unconditioned transfer from school to school may diminish their effectiveness instead of enhancing them (Raval and Subramanian, 2000). This is because the unmediated application of the best practices across culturally diverse contexts may generate distortions in perceptions, interpretations, and understanding; inevitably, conflicts and resistance will affect the school’s running and, eventually, the whole business (Raval and Subramanian, 2000). As accurately observed by the polyglot and social theorist Richard Lewis, “leaders cannot be readily transferred from culture to culture” as their expertise would largely reveal ineffective unless contextualized and culturally adapted (Lewis, 2018). Although a school is a largely more complex entity when compared to a conventional business or organization, it is still business, and it demands the best practices to be tuned into the culture & context recipients (Raval and Subramanian, 2000). When, in fact, the differences remain unbridged and are seen as mere gaps rather than valued as learning opportunities, the success of the whole business is hindered, causing severe, costly failures (Dinker Raval, 2000).
Conclusions
The literature of different nature has clearly and homogenously demonstrated that cultural and contextual misalignment in leadership is lethal for any kind of business, for international schools before all else. This is because schools massively rely on daily human interactions with their stakeholders (Gilmour, 2021) within an environment that is naturally characterized by cultural dissonance (Walker and Riordan, 2010); eventually, as stated by Mike Gilmour, Deputy Principal at GEMS World Academy Singapore, leading schools is a daily “relational game!” (Gilmour, 2021). If the IB® authorizations can be considered as the summative and distinctive evidence of the school’s success, their missed achievement, hence a failure, very often derives from incompatible cultural & contextual management that affects the community transversally; in fact, the authorizations are the result of harmonious and balanced extended teamwork. As this analysis is focused on the side effects caused by inadequate school leadership, the final reflection recalls specific studies on the link between school leadership and education’s failure in the United States that have led to the universal and present-day principle that the success of a organization depends on the leadership quality. More explicitly, when schools fail to meet any of the assigned objectives, its leadership becomes the first suspect to be analyzed (Reilly, 1986).
References
Allan Walker, G. R., 2010. Leading collective capacity in culturally diverse schools. School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organisation, 30(1), pp. 51-63.
Adams, D. B., 2017. International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme: The Culture and Climate in Lower Performing High Schools during the Authorization Process. [Online]
Available at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3764&context=luc_diss
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Gilmour, M., 2021. Building School Culture in an International Context. InterACT, 3(2), pp. 6-9.
Hammad, W. and Shah, S. J. (2018) ‘Dissonance Between the “International” and the Conservative “National”: Challenges Facing School Leaders in International Schools in Saudi Arabia’, Educational Administration Quarterly, 54(5), pp. 747–780.
International Baccalaureate Organization, 2005. International Baccalaureate. [Online]
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Lewis, R. D., 2018. When Cultures Collide. 4th ed. London: Nicholas Brealry Publishing.
Dinker Raval, B. S., 2000. Effective Transfer of Best Practices across Cultures. Competitiveness Review, 10(2), pp. 183-191.
Raval, D. and Subramanian, B. (2000) ‘Effective Transfer of Best Practices across Cultures’, Competitiveness Review, 10(2), pp. 183–191.
Reilly, D. H., 1986. Educational Leadership: the Missing Element. Education, 106(421-428).
Villegas, A. M., 1988. School Failure and Cultural Mismatch: Another View. The Urban Review, 20(4), pp. 253-265.
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