The System Lever Toolkit: Tools for Change includes two tools for leaders: a SWOT Analysis and a Living Leadership for System Transformation Activity. These activities help system-level leaders recognize opportunities in their organizations and leverage their strengths to move their systems toward positive change. This toolkit is the third of four companion resources to the publication Transforming Educational Systems Toward Continuous Improvement: A Reflection Guide for K-12 Executive Leaders.
The Tools for Change in this toolkit help leaders understand an organization’s current state related to continuous improvement, identify promising levers of change, and integrate different elements of leadership to drive targeted change in their systems. The toolkit is grounded in the elements of leadership – key dispositions, core practices, and system levers – introduced in Transforming Educational Systems Toward Continuous Improvement: A Reflection Guide for K-12 Executive Leaders. While the two tools in this toolkit are most powerful when used together, they are still effective when implemented separately.
The SWOT analysis is best completed as a team in order to ensure building a robust picture of the organization from multiple sources of input. The analysis tool prompts system-level leaders and their teams to answer the question: What are the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to its evolution toward a system that is capable of continuously improving? Leaders and their teams can identify levers of change that emerge from the analysis and align their practice and decision making to advance their organization’s capacity for improvement.
The Living Leadership for System Transformation Activity enables individual leaders to practice applying an integrated approach to enacting change in their systems. This tool walks leaders through a process to identify key dispositions and select core practices to focus on in order to strengthen a specific system lever in their own context.
Watch the video clip below of Mike Hanson, former Superintendent of Fresno Unified School District and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation, as he gives an example of the integrated nature of the dispositions, practices and system levers in living the work of system transformation toward continuous improvement.
It is strongly recommended that you review the full reflection guide and work through the System Leader Toolkit: Diagnostic Tool for Reflection and System Leader Toolkit: Tools for Growth before leveraging the tools in this toolkit.
To use the System Lever Toolkit:
- Access the toolkit using the link below.
- Follow the instructions in the toolkit to complete the SWOT Analysis. Complete this exercise with your leadership team or another small group, if possible. Use the reflection questions provided to synthesize your learning.
- Follow the instructions in the toolkit to complete the Living Leadership for System Transformation Activity. Use the reflection questions provided to synthesize your learning.
