A Reflection from Harvard GSE – Leading the Change (CSML)
As part of my studies in the Certificate in School Management and Leadership (CSML) program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I recently completed Module 3 of Leading the Change, which focuses on one of the most powerful—and often overlooked—forces in schools: culture.
Like many educators and school leaders, I have often focused on the visible aspects of school improvement: curriculum design, assessment practices, instructional strategies, and professional development. These elements are essential, but the course prompted me to pause and reflect on something deeper.
Why do some initiatives flourish while others quietly disappear?
Why do some schools feel energized and collaborative, while others struggle with mistrust or fragmentation?
The answer often lies in something that cannot be easily measured or written into a policy: the culture of the school.
This module invited me to reflect not only on the concept of culture, but also on my own experiences as a teacher and school leader, and how culture silently shapes what is possible in a learning community.
Culture: The Hidden Engine of a School
Every school has a culture.
You can feel it the moment you walk through the door. It shows itself in how teachers greet each other in the morning, how students move through the hallways, how mistakes are treated in classrooms, and how openly people speak in meetings.
Some cultures feel energizing and purposeful. Others feel cautious, fragmented, or tense.
What many school leaders eventually discover is that culture quietly determines whether change succeeds or fails. Curriculum reforms, new policies, and instructional initiatives rarely succeed in isolation. They take root only when the surrounding culture supports them.
Leading change, therefore, is not only about systems or strategies. It is about shaping the environment in which those systems operate.
Enabling vs. Inhibiting Cultures
One idea from the course that resonated deeply with me was the distinction between enabling and inhibiting cultures.
An enabling culture supports the mission of teaching and learning. In such environments:
- teachers collaborate openly
- students feel respected and supported
- feedback is welcomed
- improvement is shared responsibility
An inhibiting culture, however, works against these goals. In these environments:
- people protect themselves rather than support one another
- difficult conversations are avoided
- innovation feels risky
- improvement becomes slow and fragmented
The question for leaders is therefore not simply whether a culture feels “good” or “bad,” but whether it enables the work of learning or inhibits it.
Why Leaders Must Pay Attention to Culture
Many school leaders initially focus on visible issues such as test results, curriculum alignment, or classroom strategies. These are critical areas of work, but they often sit on top of something deeper.
Without trust, collaboration, and shared purpose, even the most carefully designed initiatives struggle to gain traction.
Teachers are less likely to experiment with new strategies when they fear criticism. Staff members are less likely to share challenges if the environment discourages vulnerability. Improvement slows down because the conditions necessary for learning—among both students and adults—are missing.
In this sense, culture acts like the soil in which educational practices grow. If the soil is weak, even the strongest ideas struggle to flourish.
Understanding Culture Through Three Dimensions
The course introduced a helpful way of understanding culture through three interconnected dimensions.
Shared Beliefs and Assumptions
At the deepest level lie the beliefs that shape how people interpret their work.
Do teachers believe all students can succeed?
Do staff members see improvement as part of professional responsibility?
Do families feel they belong in the school community?
These beliefs are often unspoken, yet they strongly influence daily decisions.
Norms and Behaviors
The second dimension is more visible. Norms and behaviors show how beliefs translate into action.
This includes how meetings are conducted, how feedback is given, and how teachers discuss teaching and learning with one another. These patterns gradually form expectations for how members of the community behave.
Artifacts
The most visible dimension consists of artifacts—the physical and symbolic elements of school life.
Displays of student work, classroom arrangements, hallway interactions, and school traditions all communicate what the school values.
When these three dimensions align, culture becomes coherent and strong. When they conflict, the culture becomes confusing and inconsistent.
The Difference Between “Nice” and “Kind”
One cultural pattern that often appears in schools is the difference between being nice and being kind.
In some professional environments, teachers avoid giving constructive feedback in order to protect each other’s feelings. Meetings remain polite, but important issues remain unspoken.
Over time, this politeness can prevent professional growth.
Kindness, however, looks different. It involves the courage to offer thoughtful feedback because improvement matters more than comfort.
Schools that move from superficial niceness to genuine professional kindness create stronger cultures for learning. Honest conversations become possible, and improvement becomes collective work.
The Power of Subcultures
Another insight from the course is that schools rarely have a single unified culture.
Instead, they contain multiple subcultures.
Different grade levels, departments, and staff groups often develop their own norms and expectations. Some of these subcultures may already reflect the values the school hopes to cultivate.
For leaders seeking change, these pockets of positive practice can become powerful starting points. Highlighting successful classrooms or collaborative teams can show others what the desired culture looks like in practice.
Change rarely spreads instantly across an entire school. More often, it begins in small communities before expanding outward.
When Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Schools frequently communicate their values through mission statements and strategic plans. However, culture is shaped far more strongly by what people actually observe.
A school might claim to value perseverance while celebrating only top academic results. A school might emphasize collaboration while teachers continue working in isolation.
Students and staff quickly recognize these inconsistencies.
This is why leaders must pay careful attention not only to what is said, but also to what is consistently practiced. Enacted norms will always shape culture more powerfully than stated ones.
Culture and Everyday Decisions
One of the most powerful aspects of culture is how it guides everyday decisions.
In a strong culture, teachers instinctively understand how to support struggling students, how to respond to disruptions, and how to collaborate with colleagues. Shared values become internalized, reducing the need for constant direction from leadership.
In weaker cultures, these decisions feel inconsistent. Similar situations may be handled very differently from one classroom to another, leaving both staff and students uncertain about expectations.
A strong culture becomes something like the conscience of the school, quietly guiding decisions throughout the day.
Leading Cultural Change
Transforming a school’s culture is not a quick technical fix. It is an adaptive leadership challenge.
It requires shifts in:
- beliefs
- behaviors
- expectations
- relationships
Leaders must often begin by helping the community recognize why change is necessary. This means examining practices that may no longer serve students well and creating a sense of urgency around improvement.
Vision, shared values, and consistent modeling of desired behaviors become essential elements of this work.
Most importantly, cultural change cannot be imposed by a single leader. It grows when members of the community begin to see themselves as responsible for shaping the environment together.
Final Reflection
Completing this module was a valuable reminder that the most powerful forces in schools are often invisible.
Policies, programs, and strategies matter, but they only become effective when the culture surrounding them supports growth, trust, and learning.
As school leaders, we sometimes look for solutions in new initiatives or structural changes. Yet many of the barriers we encounter are cultural rather than technical.
The challenge—and opportunity—is to cultivate environments where people feel safe to learn, honest conversations can take place, and improvement becomes part of everyday work.
School culture is not something we simply inherit. It is something we continuously shape together.
Acknowledgements
This reflection was inspired by Module 3: Culture from the course Leading the Change in the Certificate in School Management and Leadership (CSML) program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Special thanks to the course instructors and contributors whose insights informed this module:
- Mary Grassa O’Neill
- Monique Burns Thompson
- Katherine K. Merseth
The module also draws on leadership research and ideas from:
- Ronald Heifetz
- John P. Kotter
and includes the leadership case study of principal Quinton Courts.
Their work continues to provide powerful guidance for educators seeking to lead meaningful and lasting change in schools.
Images:
Conceptual visualizations of school culture.” Gemini, Nano Banana 2 model, 13 Mar. 2026.
Ramazan Dicle 