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Update leadership.md
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mjsamberg authored Nov 20, 2023
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At a larger scale, it's important for any leader to be sensitive to the cultural and political implications of our decisions. Every organization has only one CTO - they may be chosen externally. Having a different cultural background and not understanding the culture of the district or organization where you work create two blind spots for any leader. This applies to the macro-culture of the place and the history, as well as the micro-culture within the organization. Especially in less transitory communities, the school represents a cornerstone in their lives - it's the district and school that they attended, their parents attended, and their grandparents attended. Schools are something deeply personal to communities and that communities hold up as something they're extremely proud of. A significant number of schools have multiple staff members who attended school there or their parents worked there. Leaders who fail to be sensitive to that pride and ownership will fail. Leaders who don't manage change well and don't design from a place of empathy (refer to Unit 2 on leadership and change management) will fail.

But these culminate in larger political implications for leadership. Leadership is political. Leadership in school districts is especially political. This is both "little p" politics as in the politics of any workplace (micro-political leadership is a [standard of evaluation for principals](https://files.nc.gov/dpi/north_carolina_standards_for_school_executives_1.pdf)) and also ["big P" Politics as in our political climate](https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/pages/3_1-policy-leadership-learning-from-leadership.aspx). Schools are, after all, managed at the local, state, and Federal levels by elected officials. Managing all of these constituencies is a challenge for anyone in a leadership position, especially in education. In the context of digital learning, technology has also been a political football in the education space as well [see this blog post by Audrey Watters](https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/do-educational-technologies-have-politics/release/1) and [this research paper](https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/do-educational-technologies-have-politics/release/1). If you're interested in this, even though she's no longer actively maintaining the blog, Audrey Watters' [Hack Education Blog](http://hackeducation.com) is a treasure trove of well-researched, interesting to read articles on the topic.
But these culminate in larger political implications for leadership. Leadership is political. Leadership in school districts is especially political. This is both "little p" politics as in the politics of any workplace (micro-political leadership is a [standard of evaluation for principals](https://files.nc.gov/dpi/north_carolina_standards_for_school_executives_1.pdf)) and also ["big P" Politics as in our political climate](https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-politics-are-straining-parent-school-relationships/2022/02). Schools are, after all, managed at the local, state, and Federal levels by elected officials. Managing all of these constituencies is a challenge for anyone in a leadership position, especially in education. In the context of digital learning, technology has also been a political football in the education space as well [see this blog post by Audrey Watters](https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/do-educational-technologies-have-politics/release/1) and [this research paper](https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/do-educational-technologies-have-politics/release/1). If you're interested in this, even though she's no longer actively maintaining the blog, Audrey Watters' [Hack Education Blog](http://hackeducation.com) is a treasure trove of well-researched, interesting to read articles on the topic.

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