Inside the SMT: Teamwork in Secondary School Management

by Mike Wallace, Valerie Hall

There is a senior management team (SMT) in almost every secondary school, but what do these team members actually do? This is the first book to reveal their inside story. It reports on research into six SMTs, two of which the authors observed over a full year. A new cultural and political perspective is used to explore how team members worked together and related to other staff and governors. Teamwork is shown to be a ‘high gain, high strain’ it offers the potential for effective management, especially in coping with multiple reforms, but it is difficult to bring off. Some problems are linked with a tension between the different status of members within the school management hierarchy, and their right to make an equal contribution to the work of the team. The authors put forward a series of hypotheses about SMT effectiveness which may be used as a starting point for team-improvement efforts. This stimulating and carefully argued account is essential reading for all who are interested in the contribution of senior staff in schools; headteachers, teachers, governors, trainers, and providers of advanced courses in educational management.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1994

About the author

Myron Leon Wallace was an American journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality. Known for his investigative journalism, he interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his seven-decade career. He was one of the original correspondents featured on CBS news program 60 Minutes, which debuted in 1968. Wallace retired as a regular full-time correspondent in 2006, but still appeared occasionally on the series until 2008. He is the father of Chris Wallace.
Wallace interviewed many politicians, celebrities, and academics, such as Tina Turner, Joseph Bonanno, Vladimir Horowitz, Bobby Fischer, Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Callas, Malcolm X, Richard Nixon, Pearl S. Buck, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Jiang Zemin, Ruhollah Khomeini, Kurt Waldheim, Frank Lloyd Wright, Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Louis Farrakhan, Manuel Noriega, John Nash, Gordon B. Hinckley, Vladimir Putin, Barbra Streisand, Salvador Dalí, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, William Carlos Williams, Mickey Cohen, Roy Cohn, Dean Reed, Jimmy Fratianno, Morgan Freeman, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, and Ayn Rand.