It’s complicated

Abstract

A view from the dance floor of ALICSE participants showed that the integrated children’s services remain under pressure to become multi-dimensional, with the rhetorical push to a joint working becoming increasingly complex and difficult to navigate. This was the view of a 360 degree questionnaire to a number of ALICSE participants and reflections from an in-depth dialogue. The main findings suggested that collective professionalism requires collaborative relationships between organizations and individuals, and this collaboration poses the most significant challenge for educational leadership and management. The participants on the dance floor often recite phrases such as: letting go of control; no hierarchy; self-organizing. The main conclusion is that an individual needs to be self-organized and it takes a leader to be confident to manage ambiguity and complexity. Using complex adaptive systems theory and blended leadership style theories, we will assert that distributional leadership is required to navigate the complex environment. Futures thinking suggests that we could use complex adaptive systems theory to help build an effective communication strategy for individuals, teams and services that allows them to self-organize.