Future Alternatives For Educational Leadership

This book offers provocations for what’s now and what’s next in educational leadership, simultaneously bringing the field both back to its basics—of equity, democracy, humanity, and education for all—and forward to productive, innovative, and necessary possibilities. Written during the pandemic reality of 2020, this collection shares the global voices and expertise of prominent and emerging leaders, scholars, and practitioners in education from the UK, the United States, South America, Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. The authors engage with the complexities and uncertainties of leading in education. They examine research, reflections, and real stories from which school leaders, education system leaders, policymakers, and researchers in the field of educational leadership, can learn, and in which they will find honesty, authority, and inspiration to guide the future of the field. The new perspectives and hopeful alternatives presented in this outstanding book are essential to researchers, school leaders, and policymakers, and are key to advancing education into positive and democratic futures.

The charismatic transformational leader, who creates a ′vision′ for the future of their organization and persuades others to follow their path towards it, is now the dominant viewpoint that underpins government policies towards leadership development in the English-speaking world. This book offers a much-needed corrective to this orthodoxy by focusing on current research and thinking about ′leadership′ rather than ′leaders. A wide range of prominent international contributors present a rare self critical look at their own assertions and test alternative leadership models against recent research projects. They also demonstrate how their analysis is relevant to all countries where leadership is an issue. Major features include: ] alternative theories to understanding the nature of leadership ] how leadership could be analyzed ] re-analysis of recent research carried out by contributors in the light of one or more of the alternative theories examined ] implications of the alternative perspectives for leadership training This book is recommended to all staff and students involved in educational leadership, management or administration programmes.

Based on the authors' research on the behaviour and thinking of school leaders, this volume presents arguments about the natue of expert school leadership. It parallels developments in the field from the early 1980s when the emphasis was on identifying the behaviours of effective principals, to the early 1990s, when the focus shifted to understanding the thinking underlying those behaviours. The ideas contained in this book should be useful in helping practising educationalists develop the skills involved in school leadership.

In a complex and multi-layered world, the conventional idea of great leadership being the result of the efforts of a single individual is rapidly becoming redundant. This book takes up the challenge of finding an alternative method of leadership in educational contexts, and looks at how this can help achieve sustained improvement in schools. The authors acknowledge that there are no simple solutions to school improvement. They argue that the effective leaders of the future will be those who are able to share responsibility, build positive relationships and offer stakeholders - teachers, parents and students - an opportunity to work together to improve their schools. The book is based around four key areas of concern: the changing context of leadership, leadership and school improvement, building leadership capacity, and future direction and implications. In each section, the authors discuss current theories and issues, and put forward alternative ideas and perspectives. This important book will make valuable reading for headteachers, principles, deputies and other senior teachers, particularly those undertaking leadership qualifications and training. It will also be of interest to postgraduate students and school governors.

This book aims to fill the gap in our knowledge about crisis management in schools, its particular characteristics, and strategies from a historical point of view. It combines knowledge about educational leadership with biographical narratives of great leaders in history who have faced a tremendous crisis successfully and from whom we can learn a lot about effective coping strategies in times of crisis. The leaders in the book represent different nations and organizations, facing political, military, economic or social crises. The book provides a deeper knowledge necessary for preparing for a possible crisis and for managing it in successful ways if it comes and adds novel insights into the field of educational administration and leadership in the twenty-first century.

Based on research and consultations with influential school middle leaders, Middle Leadership in Schools presents ideas and actions designed specifically to stimulate and enhance educators leading from the middle, as a catalyst to enable them to do what they do with greater influence and impact.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This open access book provides a comprehensive overview and in-depth coverage of contemporary aspects of leadership in the field of education in Finland. It brings together Finnish scholars to critically explore and discuss leadership in education in the context of the Finnish education system and in relation to international discourses around the topic. It discusses the phenomenon of leadership in educational contexts through several novel empirical and theoretical research designs. It includes themes such as distributed leadership and collaborative governance, changing aspects in the leadership profession, and contradictions in everyday organizational practices and realities. The work also combines conceptual discussions in educational and pedagogical leadership to analyze and to clarify the theoretical and conceptual multidimensionality and ambiguities.