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Leaders as designers

What does it mean for me to be a designer?

School leaders are designers of the school’s governing ideas (mission, vision, core values) by which people should live and work and the policies, strategies and ‘systems’ (by which the governing ideas are brought into reality). The leader as designer is also responsible for designing the learning processes whereby people throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues as they arise. They embed a needs analysis and user-centred approach to solving problems and creating preferred futures.

This page provides you with a number of tools and methods you can use.

School leader as designer: What does it mean?

“The school day starts when the first child arrives, and it ends when the last child leaves. Everything that happens in between is ultimately our decision as educators.”  – Jennifer Sublette

In his seminal book The Fifth Discipline Peter Senge speaks of leaders not in terms of being captains of their ships but designers of their organisations. The decisions and choices they make affect the lives and work of people who work in the school.

Questions for you to consider as a designer:

  • How do you know the needs of different student groups?
  • To what extent are your decisions, as school leader, geared towards meeting the needs of students and teachers?

You may like to read this short blog on The School Leader As Designer, ASCD, 2018.

What is human-centered design?

This is how Design Kit explains human centered design, as a way of problem solving:

"Human-centered design is a creative approach to problem solving and the backbone of our work at IDEO.org. It’s a process that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs. Human-centered design is all about building a deep empathy with the people you’re designing for; generating tons of ideas; building a bunch of prototypes; sharing what you’ve made with the people you’re designing for; and eventually putting your innovative new solution out in the world.

Human-centered design consists of three phases. In the Inspiration Phase you’ll learn directly from the people you’re designing for as you immerse yourself in their lives and come to deeply understand their needs. In the Ideation Phase you’ll make sense of what you learned, identify opportunities for design, and prototype possible solutions. And in the Implementation Phase you’ll bring your solution to life, and eventually, to market. And you’ll know that your solution will be a success because you’ve kept the very people you’re looking to serve at the heart of the process."

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