Balancing Autonomy and Authority

We have a very small staff at the English school, which is essentially divided into two teams – those who handle the administrative matters and the teachers. Although the teachers are much younger than the administrative team members, they are treated as equals and are considerably autonomous as well as self-directed. The teachers are entrusted to come up with and organize lesson plans as well as the special summer events completely on their own. Essentially, the administrative staff makes the decisions regarding generalities, such as the budget and dates for activities, while the teachers handle all of the details, including gathering supplies and running the events. Although the major decisions are centralized within the administrative team, the smaller choices are dispersed among the teachers who are free to pick and choose exactly how to execute the rough outline of a plan provided by those higher up. For example, the administration deemed this past week “Science Week,” so the teachers were then responsible for brainstorming science-related activities and kid-friendly experiments to perform with the students. This distribution of tasks seems to maintain a healthy balance of direction for the employees mixed with the freedom to put their own personal spin on projects. 

Nevertheless, while being granted the autonomy to orchestrate special events on our own is great for us teachers and we appreciate the trust that the administration has in us, things can get a bit frustrating when not enough direction is given and/or instructions are communicated at the last minute. Because we are used to having the freedom to customize our plans for certain activities, the few times that the administrative members do have something more specific in mind can be a bit confusing if they do a poor job of expressing the details they are envisioning. This is inefficient because it leads to teachers having to redo something or rearrange plans they had previously assumed that they had total jurisdiction over once the administrative team chimes in with their own ideas concerning a project’s finer details. Typically, such mishaps are avoided because the line of communication between our leaders and followers is consistently open and us followers are continually encouraged to ask questions; but, there have still been instances in which these mix ups occurred. More clearly defined instructions from the start would help to alleviate any guesswork that teachers may have to do to read the administrative team members’ minds.