The Effects of Culture and Suggestions for Cultural Change on your School

The culture of an organization affects many administrative processes in the school setting. Among these include but not limited to: leadership, motivation, morale, decision making, communication and change. Culture also can affect the school’s structural processes. The selection process, evaluation system, control system, and your reward system must fit with the school’s culture. In addition, culture has an influence on employee performance and organizational effectiveness. Administrators are evaluated on the basis of the results the school achieves. Therefore, the culture is an important concept because of the results it produces (Potter, Bulach, Fiore, & Halsey, 2000).

Keys in changing your school’s culture. Attempting to change a school’s culture can be frustrating to the school leader. Many people resist change. Especially, if it is deep rooted in organization’s traditions. Changing a longstanding culture is never easy but sometimes for the good of the organization and moving forward it is necessary. When change affects the basic character of the workplace, many people may resist. Although, hopefully staff will realize that change is the only solution for school improvement. Here are some suggestions that have found common keys to success in changing a school’s culture:

• Understand your old and current school culture. You cannot lead change if you do not know your history and current environment.
• Encourage employees. Back up those employees who are interested in changing the old culture and have ideas for a better one. Remember that new ideas are not always better than existing ones. Change is a process. Also, do not expect to get everyone on board. Work with the ones who will follow you and hopefully the others will accept the changes. If not, work around them and understand that not everyone will be agreeable to change. 
• Find the best subculture in your school. Hold it up as an example from which others can relate and learn. 
• Don’t attack the existing culture nor staff head on. Help staff find their own new ways to accomplish their tasks and hopefully a better culture will follow.
• Allow time. Significant and meaningful changes will come over time. Forced change will not be accepted and will be viewed as a mandate. Change of culture will flourish if carefully planned and nourished. If your district has a policy of frequently moving principals this can be a deterrent to change as staff will just wait for you and your ideas to move on.
• Live the culture you want. Action speaks louder than words. Do what you say in and outside of school (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2000), (Potter, Bulach, Fiore, & Halsey, 2000), and (Bulach, Lunenburg, & Potter, 2016).

Written by Les Potter, Ed. D.

Les Potter is a retired US with 35 years in the US K-12 education (28 years in administration), as well as 10 years in higher education. Most recently Les has spent 8+ years in school administration in international education. Currently, he is working as a consultant and living in Cairo Egypt.