Jill Evans

EDLD 6550: School Leadership and

Organizational Development
April 10, 2018

Reflective Memo: Immunities to Change

INTERPRETATION

This article addresses the complexity of demands that educational leaders face in

administrative roles today. There is pressure to oversee students’ education, manage employees

and facilities and to carry out fundamental changes at school sites, as well. Helsing, Howell,

Kegan and Lahey support the claim that many leaders have not been trained to manage and make

sense of these multiple demands and can be overwhelmed by the responsibilities required of

them (as cited in Wager, et al., 2006). The authors assert that “Educational leaders’ work is

further complicated by current needs for the fundamental and systemic change required for

dramatically increasing student learning and achievement”.

The authors argue that school leaders are faced more with “adaptive problems” rather

than technical ones. Adaptive challenges are ones for which the experts and authorities on the

issue have not yet developed an adequate response, whereas “technical problems” are ones that

already have proven solutions (p. 438). To address this issue, they propose that educational

leaders be given opportunities that are designed to develop psychological growth since most

leaders do not come into their jobs with the psychological capacities necessary to make

fundamental changes to their beliefs and values. The approach to professional development that

they examine in this article claims that it “may yield transformative learning and increase

participants’ effectiveness in understanding and enacting their roles in order to meet the shifting

and increasingly complex expectations of school leadership” (p.438).

1
 Jill Evans
EDLD 6550: School Leadership and
Organizational Development
April 10, 2018
CRITICAL SELF-REFLECTION

There are many issues in this article that are underlying concerns for many educators; we

are given many roles and responsibilities but often times lack the expertise with which to carry

them out. I have felt many frustrations as a result of being the department chair. For example, I

am required to maintain a budget for my department yet I have never been given professional

development on how to manage and allocate the resources that we receive. This is a “technical

problems” for the most part. An example of an “adaptive problem” I have experience is that I

have received little guidance when it comes to interviewing and hiring new teachers. Most of the

professional development that I have received that address issues that involve psychological

capacities was acquired from BTSA training. Most of the professional development that I

receive in my district is not designed to change or improve a psychological mindset, but rather to

maintain or build upon required knowledge that pertains to student safety, technology or laws. I

think that professional development designed to diagnose educational leaders’ immunities to

change would be beneficial because they could scrutinize previous assumptions and make

necessary changes. This type of professional development is something that can cross over into

personal enrichment as well, thus improving work-life balance.

QUESTIONS

1) I appreciate that the professional development described by Helsing, Howell, Kegan and

Lahey does not only serve to educate leaders about the importance of self-authoring

developmental capacities, but they also provide a model to implement the change.

However, I wonder if there is any coaching that takes places after the professional

2
 Jill Evans
EDLD 6550: School Leadership and
Organizational Development
April 10, 2018
development? The article mentions that is usually about a 6 month process, but I wonder

what additional support is offered to the educational leader.

2) Is self-authoring of developmental capacities a popular type of professional development

amongst districts? How does it differ from other PD that educational leaders complete?

3) It’s often very easy to address problems and dictate what is wrong, but the real work

comes in implementing solutions and change. That being said, is this a new educational

trend that will soon be forgotten, thus frustrating educators who will put time and energy

into creating and analyzing their immunity maps?

References

Helsing, D., Howell, A., Kegan, R., Lahey., L. (2008). Putting the “Development” in
Professional Development: Understanding and Overturning Educational Leaders’
Immunities to Change. Harvard Educational Review, (78)3, 437-465.

Wagner, T., Kegan, R., Lahey, L., Lemons, R., Garnier, J., Helsing, D., et al. (2006). Change
leadership: A practical guide to transforming our schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.