Practitioners and students of educational leadership will treasure this book that redefines what it takes to lead public schools in the twenty-first century. Describing the century-long journey that has shaped educational leadership, the authors focus on extensive research and personal experience to create a landmark definition of what it takes to be an educational leader with the responsibility...

~School leaders work in a complex world. The challenges faced require a system that is agile and people who are capable of being adaptable. These two qualities coexist when organizational structures are flexible and leadership thinking is dispositional in nature. Our goal in Dispositions of Leadership: The Effects on Student Learning and...

It is with profound gratitude that we thank Gordon Donaldson, Bob Garmston, Russ Quaglia, and David Perkins for their personal friendship and lifelong professional commitment to improving the world through education. It has been humbling to have colleagues provide unconditional support and express their faith in us.

The intent of this book is to rethink how schools are led. Traditional approaches often focus either on telling leaders how to think or instead on addressing educators’ requests to “just tell me what to do.” Approaches that focus on telling leaders how to think are often too abstract and theoretical to be very useful or meaningful. Similarly, a “just tell me what to...

New and practical concepts for leading schools are needed that draw upon the extensive body of research focused on leading and student learning. Prior research on leadership in education generally lacked a body of evidence to support the work of district-level or school-level leaders. However, for the first time, recent research findings by two groups of researchers led by Viviane Robinson and...

The assertion was made at the beginning of this bo~ok that effective school leadership in the information age needs to be informed by research on the relationship between school leadership and student learning, described in chapter 1. The assertion was also made that this foundational understanding of the relationship between leadership and student...

As described in the previous two chapters, effective school leadership in the information age requires strong knowledge and understanding of the effects of educational leadership on student learning (see chapter 1), as well as the organizational structure of an agile organization to support school leadership (chapter 2). These two concepts form the foundation of contemporary educational leadership...

In this book, thinking and acting interdependently is defined as promoting a positive, collaborative learning culture through distributed leadership. A question in front of educators with this disposition is, what ways of “thinking, being, and doing” would serve schools well as educators work together to create a collaborative environment that is focused on providing a coherent...

Kenneth Leithwood and Karen Seashore Louis (2012) found that the influence of leadership on student learning is mostly indirect. However, the influence of leadership on adult learning should be mostly direct. This influence on adults occurs through the medium of effective communication. Leaders who skillfully teach and model effective interpersonal communication and organize...

In the current era of increased accountability, most school systems and schools are inundated with data. However, oftentimes these data are not systematically and intentionally gathered with the purpose of setting direction and informing change. In addition, too often individual preferences and independent thinking compete with information gathered for evidence-based decision making.

Leadership has an intrapersonal dimension, a knowledge and understanding of self, that is integral to resiliency and professional growth as a leader. The intrapersonal dimensions for a leader include an understanding and willingness to develop or enhance self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-efficacy. Self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-efficacy are equally necessary attributes to ensure...

In architecture, a keystone is the wedge-shaped stone placed at the apex of a masonry arch. It is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position. An arch cannot be self-supporting until the keystone is placed. Figuratively, the term refers to a central element—an idea, policy, or concept upon which other associated elements rely in order to function. It...

The information age requires a different approach for leading in medicine, business, the military, and education. Leaders in all fields encounter challenges that defy so~lving problems by using predetermined steps that are transmitted to subordinates who comply with the directions as given. Bureaucratic command-and-control thinking, created for the...

Gary Whiteley has been an educator for thirty-six years. He has served in many roles at the school level and district level, including classroom teacher, assistant principal, school principal, and assistant superintendent. He was a research associate with the Center for Research and Evaluation at the University of Maine and participated in program evaluations and research studies in New...