"Public education is constantly evolving, and new challenges require school officials to be insightful, prepared, and innovative. It is because of these changing times that this book, which offers a different view of systems analysis and organizational behavior, is so valuable." —Frank Bush, Executive Director Indiana School Boards Association "Educational leaders need a basis for confident decision making. The authors have a solution for challenging times." —Kay Harmless, Interim Director, Indiana Principal Leadership Academy Indiana Department of Education What decisions are in the best interest of students, teachers, staff, and others in your school community? It is essential for every school leader to possess the savvy to effect positive change, raise achievement levels, and foster a positive school climate. Now it seems that the struggle for school leaders to make productive decisions has become clouded with ever-growing uncertainty and skepticism. Transformational Leadership & Decision Making in Schools emphasizes the need for a resilient decision-making pedagogy—one that helps school leaders find and re-center their approaches to making effective decisions for their schools and districts. This important resource provides methods and strategies to tackle tough decisions, providing concise step-by-step considerations to transform your decision making. The essential information presented includes: A personal decision-making self-assessment Reflective thinking sections for individual reflection and group dialogue Discussion of the role of vision and mission Ideas on motivation and the capacity for change A look at barriers to decision making Information on developing relationships with respect and rapport

Creating Capacity for Learning and Equity in Schools provides a comprehensive guide for aspiring and practicing leaders to strengthen their capacity to create high levels of learning and equity. Chapters explore key theories and research, provide resources for developing personal and organizational leadership capacity, and guide leaders through a reflective process to help them link theory and practice. Hooper and Bernhardt’s model for excellence and equity provides a pathway for educators to create and sustain learning communities in schools. Exploring three leadership approaches—Instructional, Adaptive, and Transformational—this textbook prepares and develops leaders to engage school communities through effective instructional leadership, data-informed decision-making, and a vision for learning and equity for all. Special Features: Theory to Practice (T2P) Framework—A series of structured exercises help readers review and reflect on existing organizational practices and develop new action plans. Case Studies—Encourage individual reflection and collective discussion on key leadership scenarios. Examples in Action—Challenge readers to analyze new connections and leadership processes. A companion website—Includes additional resources and tools for instructors to facilitate activities in the classroom.

Transformational Leadership provides the reader with a background of meaningful and purposeful leadership, and the building blocks of the learning organisation. These concepts are applied to the values and the operation of the Individualised Education Program team so schools can demonstrate special education effectiveness.

2011 AJN Book of the Year Winner in Leadership and Management! The ultimate goal for Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) leaders is to develop skills that will support their ability to lead effectively through complex challenges-such as working within the constraints of tight budgets, initiating health care policy change to eliminate health disparities, and improving health care outcomes at all levels of care. This text is an invaluable instructional guide for nursing graduate students who are developing the skills needed to fulfill this new and emerging role of clinical leadership. With this book, nurses can develop leadership skills that will ultimately transform health care practice by incorporating innovative professional models of care. It provides critical information and practical tools to enhance leadership, drawing from the works of experts in business and health care leadership. This book is an important resource for DNP students, nurse practitioners, and current clinical leaders dealing with the challenges of health care for the next generation. Key topics: Cultivating the characteristics of a transformational leader: charisma, innovation, inspiration, intellect, and more Developing the role of the DNP within complex organizational systems Incorporating new care delivery, practice, and management models through leadership Navigating power, politics, and policy: building the team, understanding economics and finance, and more

Bridge the achievement gap with proven strategies for student success Breakthrough Principals debunks the myth of the 'superhero' principal by detailing the common actions and practices of leaders at our nation's fastest-gaining public schools. Based on the authors' Transformational Leadership Framework, which they developed through in-depth study of more than 100 high-gaining, high-poverty schools, the book distills findings into a practical, action-focused plan for diagnosing school needs and implementing structures, systems and practices that accelerate student achievement. Brought to life by case studies of principals who have led dramatic gains in student achievement, the book is a how-to guide for increasing the quality of teaching and learning; improving school culture; attracting and supporting high-performing teachers; and involving parents and community to help students achieve. You'll learn how breakthrough principals make the school's mission a real part of both strategy and practice, and set up sustainable systems that support consistent, ongoing improvement. High-impact practices are organized into five broad categories: learning and teaching, school-wide culture, aligned staff, operations and systems, and personal leadership. The primary job of school leadership is to help students succeed. It begins with first recognizing and prioritizing areas of need, then finding and implementing the most effective solutions. Whether you work in a turn around environment, or want to make a good school better, this book will give you a set of concrete practices—illustrated through examples of real principals in real schools—that have been proven to work. Discover the primary drivers of student achievement Work toward the school's vision in staffing, operations, and systems Set the tone for all relationships and practices with good leadership Closing the achievement gap is a major goal of educational leadership, and principals are forever searching for viable methods that help them better serve their students. Breakthrough Principals unveils the details behind the success stories from across the nation to provide a roadmap to transformative gains.

Developing Rural School Leaders combines a focus on rural education and school leadership development to illustrate how the teaching and learning conditions in rural schools can be enhanced through transformative leadership coaching. By unpacking literature related to rural school leadership development and using case studies to authentically illustrate the complexities involved in rural school leadership development, this book explores how leaders can develop their abilities to increase data-informed instructional decision making, create a culture that supports teaching and learning, and develop other leaders. Ultimately, this important book concludes with an exploration of the opportunities and challenges of developing rural school leaders.

EDITORS This introduction to the International Handbook of Educational Lead ership and Administration describes some of the motivation for devel oping the book and several assumptions on which is based much of the work represented in its 31 chapters. A synopsis of the contents of those chapters is also provided. SOME KEY ASSUMPTIONS It is sometimes suggested that the search for an adequate understanding of leadership is doomed to fail. After all, there is little evidence of agreement about the concept in spite of prodigious efforts dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. Such a view is captured, for exam ple, in Bennis' observation that: Of all the hazy and confounding areas in social psychology, leadership theory undoubtedly contends for top nomination. Probably more has been written and less is known about lead ership than any other topic in the behavioural sciences. (1959, page 259) We do not find this state of affairs discouraging (nor entirely accurate) and, of course, it did not prevent Bennis from proceeding either. One reason for our desire to continue in the face of such discouraging words is that a great deal of leadership research aspires to develop a general theory, a theory which applies to all or most domains of organized human activity. This aspiration inevitably produces decontextualized and, therefore, abstract categories of practice. Howard Gardner's (1995) depiction of leadership as story telling is a case in point.