Narrative leadership in a quality organization: a meaningful alternative to management by measurement

Abstract

In the wake of teacher evaluation and performance pay legislation in the USA, an unprecedented cheating scandal in the Atlanta Public School System, and similar smaller testing scandals elsewhere, the effectiveness of school improvement models based on measuring standardized testing results is now a concern. This article addresses this concern by building on research that describes a successful accreditation approach using storytelling in a school-wide portfolio framework. The evaluation of this relational approach to accreditation laid the foundation for this examination of an organizational semiotic model of narrative leadership. In this study, I answer two overarching research questions: (1) how does a story construct narrative leadership? and (2) how does narrative leadership socially construct a quality organization through storytelling? This investigation validates narrative leadership as an effective alternative to the management-by-measurement approach to school improvement and as a way to construct quality organizations for the twenty-first century.

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Dr Kathaleen Reid-Martinez for providing direction in this article, sharing her insights, and, most of all, being a narrative leader. I want to also thank the editor and reviewers for their suggestions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Buddy Fisch

Buddy Fisch, PhD, is a social studies teacher at North Hall Middle School, 4856 Rilla Road, Gainesville, GA 30506, USA. Email: [email protected]. He has research interest in organizational change and taught leadership principles and organization theory in the Department of Psychology and Sociology at the University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA, USA. He has also taught in the Graduate School of Education at Brenau University, Gainesville, GA, USA.