Leading Through a Fiscal Nightmare The Impact on Principals and Superintendents

By Rick Ginsberg and Karen D. Multon

Kappan Magazine

Times are tough. News outlets offer constant re- minders about the lingering recession and its effects. State governments are among the hardest hit, with the worst apparently yet to come. The TV news show 60 Minutes, for example, presented a report on Dec. 19, 2010, called “State Budgets: Day of Reckoning.” It highlighted the pending difficulties facing the ma- jority of states due to budget shortfalls. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (McNichol, Oliff, and Johnson 2010) reported that, although condi- tions appear to have stabilized across the nation, most states anticipate major budget problems for next year. In terms of education, the American Associa- tion of School Administrators predicted that there will be “more budget cuts, more job cuts, and fewer resources for programs and personnel” (Ellerson 2010: 6).

What often gets lost as the news about budget woes mounts is that people just like you and me, of- ten our neighbors, are responsible for identifying and implementing the specific cuts. It isn’t easy for leaders, even when they are distant from those be- ing affected. Note the words of Lee Iacocca as he de- scribed the pain associated with making cuts when Chrysler was facing bankruptcy in the late 1970s:

But our struggle had its dark side. To cut expenses, we had to fire a lot of people. It was like a war: we won, but my son didn’t come back. There was a lot of agony. People were getting destroyed, taking their kids out of college, drinking, getting divorced. Overall, we preserved the company, but only at an enormous personal expense for a great many human beings. (Iacocca 1984: 230)

Research offers only minimal guidance to lead- ers facing harsh budgets. Two lines of inquiry pro- vide some insights for dealing with difficult eco- nomic conditions. First, cutback leadership or man- agement, popularized in a recession in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and recent, related, practitioner- oriented articles offer recipes for managing decline. But many studies in both periods suggest that lead- ers are ill-equipped for handling difficult economic situations.

RICK GINSBERG is dean of the School of Education at the Uni- versity of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan., where KAREN D. MULTON is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychology and Research in Education. © 2011, Rick Ginsberg.

Second, crisis management research deals with ma- jor crises and tragedies like the mad cow disease scare, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, hurricanes/ tsunamis, and other crises that caused significant damage and pain. Such studies analyze factors de- signed to minimize the effects of a crisis. Crises are often broken down into phases to assist with devis- ing remedies. But here again, the lack of formal preparation for leaders in dealing with crises is a con- cern.

All this research highlights the importance of maintaining staff morale to keep organizations on track despite difficult circumstances. Little atten- tion, however, focuses on how leaders are affected by guiding an organization through difficult times. Given the centrality of leadership for school success, leader morale and effectiveness in tough times can’t be overemphasized.

Given the centrality of leadership for school success, leader morale and effectiveness in tough times can’t be overemphasized.

Our work examined how principals and superin- tendents deal with and are affected by a significant economic downturn. We surveyed 93 principals from one large upper-Midwest metropolitan area and 100 superintendents from four states across the country. Follow-up interviews were conducted with selected leaders. Our survey included both forced- choice and open-ended questions. (For an earlier version of the principal data, see Ginsberg and Mul- ton 2010)

PRINCIPALS AND SUPERINTENDENTS REACT

We learned that over a two-year period in 2009 and 2010, principals reported total budget cuts of 12.83%, with superintendents reporting 10.64%. In terms of satisfaction measures, both principals and superintendents reported high levels of satisfaction. On a scale from 1 (very low) to 7 (very high), prin- cipals reported their enjoyment with their position at 6.33, with superintendents reporting at 6.34. Re- garding satisfaction with their performance, princi- pals rated it as 5.77, and superintendents rated it at 5.96. On the other hand, both principals (3.19) and superintendents (3.62) reported weaker levels of sat- isfaction with their personal time. With no data re- garding feelings about personal time before budget cuts hit, it’s difficult to say how the cuts specifically affected this measure, though the differences be- tween the responses to this item and the other satis- faction measures is stark.

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