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In an interview with James Bellanca, education scholar Linda Darling-Hammond clearly delineates 3 practices  administrators must engage in to bring our schools into the 21st century. (The interview can be found in the book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn.)

"School leaders in the next decades need to engage in three practices that we haven't always seen as part of school administration. First is constructing time for teachers to work together on the development of curriculum and assessments. Second is designing and implementing comprehensive professional development programs. This includes formation of professional learning communities, providing coaching and mentoring for teachers who have been identified as needing additional assistance, and encouraging peer support teams that address the special needs of struggling students. Third is helping teachers find another profession if they are unable to improve after having received purposeful support."

These 21st century educational leadership practices are clear. If we as school leaders are going to recreate our schools to "meet the intellectual demands of the 21st century" then we must be willing to engage in these 3 practices.

• As 21st century school leaders, we must advocate and work hard to reconstruct our time and school day so that our teachers can collaborate on curriculum development and assessments. The kinds of learning our students need today require the development of learning activities that are authentic. The kinds of teaching that needs to occur needs to move away from teacher-centered to student-centered learning. We must look at our allocation of time and quit making excuses for keeping the same old school schedules that prevent this collaboration. We need to be willing to advocate for school-day restructuring that gives teachers the time they need to work collaboratively on curriculum development, assessment development, and planning. As 21st century school leaders we need to stop holding the 8-3:30 school day as sacred and unchangeable and make teacher collaboration time happen.
• As 21st century school leaders we need work to design and implement professional development programs that address the needs of our schools. In times of budget cuts, we, as school leaders have sat idly by while our lawmakers have destroyed our professional development budgets. Some of us have been guilty of seeing professional development as expendable. It isn't. We need to move into a full-blown advocacy role that says professional development is necessary. It isn't some add-on. Being a  professional development leader  means taking the lead in forming authentic professional learning communities. It means providing coaching and assistance for those teachers who have identified needs. It means leading authentic discussions about those students who aren't making it. Twenty-first century school leaders are committed to professionally developing the teachers in their schools.
• Finally, we, as 21st century school leaders need to accept the responsibility and the courage to do as Hammond suggests, which is helping teachers find another profession if after all of the support we've provided fails. Even good teachers want us to take care of those who just don't have it, but they want us to do it with dignity and fairness. School leaders need to be skilled in knowing when this needs to happen, and have the courage to do so.

Verizon’s decision to not charge customers a $2 convenience fee is a lesson about power of social media, for all of us, including 21st century school leaders.(See MSNBC’s Article “Verizon Drops $2 Convenience Fee.”) As authors Randy Beal and Judy Strauss write in Radically Transparent: Managing and Monitoring Reputations Online, “The Internet provides a megaphone for the disgruntled---with no entry barrier, little legal accountability, instant commentary, full multimedia communication, and a free distribution channel to millions worldwide.” Verizon heard that megaphone and decided to let customers know they were listening.


When Verizon decided to announce a $2 fee, they ran right into thousands of consumers yelling loudly through the power of social media. As a Verizon customer, I even joined in a bit myself. Ultimately though, Verizon did what is probably the smartest thing they could do. They issued a statement that said, “At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute a fee at this time.” That is probably a textbook answer and response to a crowd empowered by social media. The company did not continue to try to defend the fee. They immediately acknowledged a change in course. That alone demonstrates one important principle described by authors Beal and Strauss, and that is: Your customers have to feel like you are listening to them. By announcing their plans to not charge a fee they clearly demonstrate their willingness to listen. Verizon should gain more positives from this response than any 2 dollar fee would ever give them.

The whole Verizon incident illustrates perfectly what Beal and Strauss say in Radically Transparent about the 21st century medium, “Social media are like word-of-mouth on steroids.” Businesses have known for a long time the power of plain word of mouth. Schools and their leaders would do well to pay attention to this power too.

Besides some great lessons for those studying the power of social media and marketing though, there are lessons for 21st century school leaders from the Verizon Incident too.

• There is a conversation online about you or your school/district and you may not know it is even happening. Beal and Strauss advocate for taking steps to listen to this conversation. In a previous post, (The Oft-Ignored 21st Century Leadership for School Leaders), I offered some suggestions on how to do that. Yet, too many school leaders, from the district level to the school level, are still ignoring social media and considering it a fad. They spend too much time finding ways to limit access to it and dismissing its impact, when they should embrace and accept it as a fact of life. The bottom line to this one is simple: ignore that online conversation to the peril of your school and perhaps yourself.
• Even though there is a conversation about you or your school/district online, you can’t control its direction. Too many school leaders and policymakers still think they can control the direction of this online conversation. They create all manner of rules and laws trying to keep the conversation at a minimum. They even try lawsuits when something is said that is objectionable. Ultimately, neither rules, policy, nor lawsuits are going to stop that conversation. Instead, 21st century school leaders need to learn how to respond effectively to social media. They need to fight fire with fire so to speak.
• You cannot control that conversation; the best you can hope for is to effectively respond to it. What does an effective response to a less-than-flattering social media posting look like? Well, those using social media don't like spin. They don't like attempts to hide behind the law or authority. The best way to respond is perhaps to open up and be what Beal and Strauss call "being radically transparent." That means being honest with people and not looking like you are still trying to hide something. That means being as honest as possible and avoiding "educationalese" or jargon. 
• Be careful of your response to that conversation. As Beal and Strauss point out, “The Internet community comes down hard on those who employ conversation spin, control, manipulation, or spam.” Should we find ourselves in a "Verizon-like-situation," a careful, well-thought-out response is a must. Social media has created a “no-spin zone” of sorts where spin is at your own risk. Taking time to plan a response is a must. There is no room for knee-jerk answers.
• As Beal and Strauss emphasize repeatedly in their book, “Be radically transparent or risk your reputation and top line.” This means using plain language, being sincere, and being candid. No generic marketing messages allowed. Welcome responses and feedback. As school leaders you have to work hard to build relationships with your community through social media, and that means being transparent.

Recently quite a few people and organizations have run headlong into the power of social media. Besides this event with Verizon, Bank of America found out firsthand the power of social media when it proposed additional fees on its customers. Then there was Lowes and its decision to pull ads from the Muslim American reality show. They also found out about the "steroid-effect" of online communication.Finally, ask Governor Brownback of Kansas, his staff,  and the poor principal who tried to force student Emma Sullivan to write that letter of apology. In every single one of these instances, an organizational or personal reputation was on the line.The one thing in common is how the organization or individual responded and resulting effect on their reputation. Social media is here to stay, and school leaders who learn to effectively use it will be more successful communicators to their stakeholders and they may perhaps head a reputation crisis too.