My Creed as a Manager

I am not a manager (though I was one in another life). And this isn't really my creed, it's an adaptation of the table found in Cranston. But it's a pretty good starting point, it seems to me.

Leadership and Culture

• I will retain only successes from the now and past.
• I will rely on community attitudes and values determine what is best for all.
• I will encourage multiple shared leadership distributed through wider communities.
• I will encourage vigorous debate of all policies, particularly by those implementing them.
• I will value and reward difference and diversity in thinking, attitudes and ideas
• I will foster quality, intellect, leadership, challenge, forward thinking and new mind-sets
• I will encourage radical ideas that depart from past practices that improve outcomes.

Policy

• I will focus on strategic policy development only, while local community developed policies take precedence.
• I will encourage communities to schools challenge the centre's policies if they are inappropriate for their community
• I will enable communities to determine all operational matters that affect them
• I will encourage more rapid implementation of policy priorities
• I will recognize community differences and accommodate them in policy development.

Relationships and accountability

• The purpose of my work is to add to the value of work in the communities
• Innovative ideas are welcomed and supported from everywhere, especially from individuals and their communities
• Communities hold clear accountabilities for outcomes, because they have control over the resources that matter
• Community determined social justice and equity priorities are embraced and funded
• Communities hold accountability for funding of schools
• Communities in collaboration with the centre determine appropriate accountabilities.

Resources

• I will support a bottom-up global approach to budgeting adopted system-wide
• Community needs are funded first; funding for the bureaucracy follows, if, and as, it is needed
• Communities determine the on-going viability and operation of operations
• Communities (individual and clusters) hold control (and accountability) for their human resources
• The best salaries and perks are awarded to people in the commuties (as allocated by the communities)
• Staffing is characterised by performance and quality.

Cranston is mostly talking about schools and administrations; I have replaced this with references to individuals and communities (which may be organizational units, informal communities, or whatever). The model holds, and, I think, holds up quite well.