Why you need 2 people to effect change in a school

I read an interesting article in Educational Leadership published by ASCD entitled "why change has legs". When introducing a new pedagogical framework, or indeed any large scale programmatic change within a school, there are two distinct actions that need to be lead:

1. Political leader - someone who sets the vision, the expectation of involvement and make a visible commitment to the change.
2. Practical leader - someone who day to day will implement the change, see how it works in the particular context, arranges training for staff, small group discussions to reflect on its implementation

What was interesting, is that the writers argued that the same person cannot take on each of these roles. I reflect on this with changes that I have made in the past where I have in the main acted in the second of those roles. To adequately transfer to the first of those roles, you have to have someone on your staff that you can trust to implement in practical manner - how will this actually work.

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