Page 14 - Mini-Module 1

Case Study of Applying
Complexity Theory to Schools

The Problems
The new principal, Alice Nguyen has just started at St.
Andrews College – the previous principal had a terrible
time with poor student behaviour. The previous principal’s
response to the poor behaviour was to tighten control over
the behaviour management policy and processes in the
school. In order to do this, he ‘counselled’ teachers who
were seen to be ‘weak’ disciplinarians, and introduced a
‘three-strikes-your-out’ rule designed to enforce discipline
on badly behaved students. According to this rule, if a
student ‘offended’ three times they were suspended,
regardless of any reason or circumstance.
Unfortunately, it did not seem to have made any
difference. If anything, there was even more unrest and
bullying in the school, and parents were complaining about
the harsh treatments being dished out by angry, stressed
teachers.

The Theory
Within Complexity Theory, leadership, arguably, is not
about directing material change; it is about enabling
changes in meaning and culture. In this formulation, it is
about changing the meaning (through a
leadership process) that in turn changes material
conditions (e.g. the elimination of discipline problems)
which eventually become enacted through the business-
as-usual processes of the organization.

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