The Vault presents prior posts from Teach & Serve.
Contentional Leadership
Though it might be hard to believe, there truly are some leaders who believe that the best way to motivate, inspire and stimulate the people with whom they work is by intentionally putting them in opposition to one another. Leaders such as this thrive on contention among their staffs and believe that the energy created from being ever in conflict is a fertile ground from which good ideas arise. These are the leaders who think the best people, the best policies and the best plans arise from skirmishes both large and small.
I know that people lead this way because I once worked for a principal who exercised this exact philosophy of leadership.
What did I learn from him?
This kind of leadership is worse than ineffective; it is, ultimately, destructive.
Contentional leadership (as I will call it) leads to a dog-eat-dog approach to teamwork or, rather, no teamwork at all. When one is only concerned with her or his ideas being better than someone else’s ideas, teamwork cannot flourish. It cannot even begin. When one is pleased that another’s seat at the table is shifted away from center in deference to her own place, community cannot thrive. When one operates to curry favor with leadership whether or not the leader deserves that favor, the system is broken.
Again, I worked in an institution where this was the operative system, where contentional leadership ruled the day for about three years running.
That was over a decade ago and the school has not fully recovered.
I do not know when it will.
Contentional leadership demeans, divides and destroys. There is no place for it schools.