Critical Leadership

This book explores an exciting new critical leadership model arising from critical theory and critical pedagogy traditions, and provides examples of applied critical leadership, ultimately expanding ways to think about current leadership models.

What are the critical practices of leaders in high-performing schools? Based on extensive observations, interviews, and in-depth case studies of principals and superintendents who significantly increase student learning and achievement, this exciting new book provides novice and veteran school leaders with the five critical steps for effective school leadership: Focus on Direction Build a Powerful Organization Ensure Student-Focused Vision and Action Give Life to Data Lead Learning Rich with voices from highly effective leaders, this book provides an accessible, research-based framework for school improvement that is correlated with the field’s standards. The engaging case studies in this vital resource show the power of these five key critical practices to make a difference in the lives of students and transform schools to support learning for all.

This concise, practical book helps managers in traditional economy companies adapt and thrive in the new economy.

In this thesis, I provide the rationale for the introduction of critical leadership as important leadership behaviors in relation to the management of daily errors. I further develop and validate an assessment tool for their measurement and I investigate its effect on the emotional reactions of followers and a variety of safety and performance related behaviors in three companies operating in different sectors. Transformational, charismatic, and related leadership theories play an important role in understanding how leaders motivate better performance. However, these approaches have paid surprisingly little attention to the management of error in organizations. In fact, current studies in transformational leadership tend to define the management of error as one of the negative features of leadership. Preventing errors and learning from error is a high profile leadership role in a wide variety of industries, and therefore, it is important that leadership theories encompass these critical tasks. I draw on different streams of research to provide a more integrated and positive approach to leadership and the management of error. I discuss how error learning culture can inform leadership behaviors that will enhance learning form error. I also draw on regulatory focus theory to illustrate how managing errors in the workplace can be differentiated from other leadership activities focus towards the attainment of gains. The integration of these ideas with current leadership theory provides a more comprehensive framework of understanding the role of leadership when error management is critical. Taken together, results from the three empirical studies contained in this thesis indicate that critical leadership positively influence followers and therefore this thesis enhances academic understanding of how leadership may treat errors in the workplace as well as providing insight for practice regarding the benefits of displaying certain leadership behaviors in relation to er...

This book contributes five novel tenets for building a critical theory of leadership studies. Drawing from transdisciplinary insights, these tenets help shape the emerging field of inquiry. They also facilitate the examination of normative social processes that reinscribe hegemonic power relations — because much of what is accomplished in current leadership scholarship, teaching, and practice reinforces these power relations. The book begins by contrasting critical theory with positivist approaches to analyzing social phenomena, and what follows is an exploration of four broad disciplines using sub-components of leadership as an investigatory lens. The resulting five tenets are presented and discussed so that they may be picked up and used by scholars contributing to the developing field of critical leadership studies.

This book contributes five novel tenets for building a critical theory of leadership studies. Drawing from transdisciplinary insights, these tenets help shape the emerging field of inquiry. They also facilitate the examination of normative social processes that reinscribe hegemonic power relations — because much of what is accomplished in current leadership scholarship, teaching, and practice reinforces these power relations. The book begins by contrasting critical theory with positivist approaches to analyzing social phenomena, and what follows is an exploration of four broad disciplines using sub-components of leadership as an investigatory lens. The resulting five tenets are presented and discussed so that they may be picked up and used by scholars contributing to the developing field of critical leadership studies.

"In this edited volume, contributors draw on the work of Andrade and Morrell (2008) in articulating critical leadership praxis, as well as critical race theory and critical education leadership scholarship, in order to "offer new and generative theories of change; they make explicit power dynamics, social inequities, and taken-for-granted forms of stratification in educational organizations with the primary purpose of offering specific and useful frames, concepts, and practices to educational leaders that they can adopt in their own work. The goal is for educational leaders to develop their sense of agency and and their knowledge and professional competencies for taking an equity and inquiry stance in their work of transforming the organizations and people around them." The work is intended to provide a counter narrative to a broad literature in educational leadership that "reinscribe white middle-class male leadership styles, values, and priorities as an assumed and normative backdrop, both in terms of the frames used and the values and epistemologies promoted." The work is organized into four sections: Transforming Self; Transforming Educators; Transforming Organizations; and Transforming Systems. Contributors include practicing leaders, doctoral students with leadership experience, and leadership faculty and researchers"--

It is important for leaders to learn as much as possible about what it takes to be a good leader. However, it is even more important to be able to apply what is being learned. Cases on Critical Leadership Skills provides interesting, real world, and often inspiring cases written by well-known experts and top level executives from around the world of leaders applying the critical skills needed to be a successful, high impact leader in a fast-paced modern society.