The Community Connection
From Havoc to Harmony with Jennifer Abrams
Havoc to Harmony with Jennifer Abrams
Havoc to Harmony
In today’s educational landscape, transforming schools into thriving, learner-centric communities is the key to sustainable success for all students. When educators collectively multiply their skills and experience—understanding essential standards, sharing instructional strategies, creating assessments, analyzing outcomes, and adjusting to meet student needs—learning ultimately improves. John Hattie’s research highlights collective teacher efficacy as a driving force for school-wide growth and student achievement. Teachers, collectively working in teams to plan for high quality instruction, examining evidence of their effectiveness and making alterations of their instruction to ensure all students are learning at high levels.
But the question isn’t why this matters—we already know that. The real question is: who is leading the charge? In my experience, the most successful schools don’t just implement effective processes; they focus on supporting the people who carry out that work. The best school leaders unite diverse individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, engaging them in the right work.
Leading a team of educators, however, is anything but straightforward. Schools, like any workplace, have their share of challenging personalities. And while it would be great if everyone brought their best selves to school every day, fully aligned in motives and beliefs, we know that’s not the reality. What matters is how leaders guide these diverse personalities to function harmoniously for student success.
Studies show that engaged, empowered teams are more productive. Gallup found a 21% increase in profitability and 17% higher productivity in highly engaged teams. McKinsey adds that such teams are 50% more likely to communicate openly, fostering faster decision-making, problem-solving, and innovation. But toxic individual behaviors can derail this harmony. Research shows disruptive colleagues reduce team cohesion, increase stress, and hinder student outcomes. These dynamics erode psychological safety and creativity, making collaboration difficult and limiting new teaching methods.
In schools, I've encountered five common challenging archetypes that can disrupt collaboration: The Micromanager, The Passive-Aggressive, The Narcissist, The Know-It-All, and The Complainer. The following is a brief description of each and a possible solution leaders can reflect on to support these individuals and the teams they are working on.
The Micromanager: These folks often feel the need to control things because they may struggle with trusting others. This can come from a fear of mistakes, a desire for perfection, or feeling responsible for every outcome. Sometimes, micromanagers worry that if they don't oversee every detail, things won't get done the way they want. They might also feel pressure to show results, leading them to believe they need to stay involved in every part of the process. These types of personalities can be challenging for team members because effective teams need the ability to be flexible and innovative with their practices. Effective teams also need to feel safe about their results and that their student results won't define them as people. One Solution: School leaders should actively clarify what’s "tight" (non-negotiable) and "loose" (flexible) in your school improvement processes. For example, establishing set goals for student achievement is tight. Allowing a team to collectively figure out the best strategies to achieve that goal is loose. Expecting assessments to be utilized by a team is an example of a tight expectation, yet allowing teams to create and design their own assessments can be loose. Additionally, Micro-Managers benefit from a sense of safety when sharing results. If leaders can allow team's to understand that data is a context about practices and not people, then a willingness to be more flexible with practices can occur.
The Passive-Aggressive: These folks generally act the way they do because they may struggle to express their feelings openly or assert themselves directly. Passive-Aggressive folks may fear conflict, lack confidence, or feel powerless in their position. Passive-Aggressive team members can impact team dynamics because they often have strong ideas and opinions about instructional decisions but won't share during team collaboration. One Solution: School leaders should work to have teams establish clear norms and procedures that ensure every voice is heard and that there is a process for team-based commitment and consensus. Specific norms—like requiring all team members to share strategies or data—foster open communication and collective responsibility. A process for consensus voting can also help passive-aggressive personalities share and commit to team decisions.
The Narcissist: Team members that display narcissistic traits can be overly focused on personal recognition, narcissists disregard team needs. Often teams these team members have a need for validation, have a fear of failure and can even lack empathy for other team members. Narcissist team members can negatively impact a team's performance because their personal goals can sometimes overtake the collective success and growth of the team.
One Solution: School leaders can work to create a culture that celebrates collective team achievements. Recognizing the team’s work, not just individual efforts, encourages collaboration and builds a culture of shared success.The Know-It-All: Team members that come off as Know-It-Alls are those that typically have many years of experience or expertise in their work. Like the Micro-Manager, they too desire a sense of control, and may fear change. In collaborative teams, the Know-It-All can negatively impact a team's performance by stifling collaboration by dismissing other's ideas and dominating discussions. Additionally, Know-It-Alls can undermine team trust by being unwilling to acknowledge their own mistakes or learn from others.
One Solution: School leaders can support this type of personality by working to elevate all voices equally. Strong collaborative teams value both experience and diverse opinions, guided by clear norms and collective commitments that promote mutual respect. Skillful school leaders can work to validate the Know-It-Alls experience and leverage that expertise to support the vision and mission of the school.The Complainer: Complainers in a team can often be overly fixated on problems without offering solutions. These team members drain team energy and morale. Generally, constant complainers have underlying frustrations, unmet needs, or difficulties in dealing with challenges. When Complainers are complaining they often are receiving attention, which takes away the time needed from a team to focus on solutions. In a healthy school environment, there is a time and a place to address concerns, but teams that focus on solutions better benefit students. One Solution: School Leaders should consistently communicate school goals, transparently share team impact, and create safe spaces for engagement. Exposing complainers to evidence of student success can also shift their focus from negativity to progress. School leaders can also skillfully work one on one with those employees that have a tendency to complain to allow them a safe avenue to voice their concerns without monopolizing a team's collaboration time.
No staff is perfect, and no team runs smoothly without effort. But when school leaders invest in understanding their teams—balancing personalities, supporting growth, and fostering collaboration—the journey from havoc to harmony becomes possible. The result? A school culture where everyone contributes to student success.
In this episode of The Community Connection, Author, Educator and International Speaker Jennifer Abrams shares her insights and expertise on this vital and important topic. Her books and research dive deep into how teachers and teams can move from havoc to harmony and how school leaders can grow in supporting their teachers and teams in fostering high levels of learning for all students.
Additional Resources and Books from Jennifer Abrams
Nathaniel Provencio has worked in the public education field since 2001 as a classroom teacher, building administrator, and associate superintendent. Nathaniel is a regional, state, and nationally awarded leader, author, and speaker.
Nathaniel partners with schools and districts across the United States to provide school leadership coaching, collaborative teaching and planning structures, school success audits, and community engagement enhancements. Contact Nathaniel to learn how to move your school or district to the next level!