When a new leader comes on the scene to a preexisting group, a lot of different things can happen, depending on how the group reacts to the leader and how the leader interacts with the group, and whether or not the leader’s plan is successful. In the case of an elementary principal (the leader) who joined a school that was struggling in almost every area, he was able to make some remarkable changes to the success of the students, with support from a majority of the teachers, but seemed to leave a few behind in the dust, in that he was overly pushy when they did not agree, to the point that he was accused of bullying those teachers. On one hand, it seemed that he was doing his best to handle unreasonable opposition from teachers who weren’t willing to change: ““For principals who come into a school where student achievement has not been as high as they believe it can be, communicating expectations for change, improvement and for collaboration is oftentimes met negatively,” said Kent Peterson, a UW-Madison education professor who taught Buhl.” (Defour, 2011)
However on the other hand it did appear that he was overbearing and bullying when met with that opposition: “The conflicts included Buhl calling a teacher an expletive when she wouldn’t change assignments and standing in classroom doorways in ways teachers perceived as blocking their exit. In one incident in which he confronted a staff member about her performance, the employee walked away and Buhl reached out to grab her arm, but she dodged him.” (Defour,2011)
To me this is the perfect example of a team and their leader ‘forming and storming’ and in fact ‘performing’ because great improvements were achieved and students performed better than ever before. However, it is hard to identify the ‘norming’ stage in the way this article was presented, but it would seem that the majority of the teachers who were in support of the principal did in fact experience the norming stage as well, which led them into the performing stage of achieving real results with their students.
Defour, M. (2011, January 16). Principal-teacher conflict simmers at glendale elementary. Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved from http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/local_schools/principal-teacher-conflict-simmers-at-glendale-elementary/article_e67f6e04-2133-11e0-82d2-001cc4c002e0.html