Educational leadership in 847 easy steps

[Cross-posted at Educational Insanity]

I remember walking into the bookstore at Teachers College, Columbia U. as a new doc. student and thinking, "what value am I going to add to the ed. research enterprise? A book has been written on everything; all the answers to all of the problems in education are right here in these books." I still have those feelings when attending major research conferences. Today, I was looking through one of the many catalogues I receive from publishers of educational texts. This one is from Corwin Press, one of the biggies. There are over 130 pages in the catalogue with 5 or 6 books described on each page. The range of topics and title is incredible, and this is only one of the many publishers of educational texts. I was amused when browsing through just the sections on Leadership and Principals I found the following titles:

• Twelve Roles for Facilitators for School Change
• Eight Habits of the Heart for Educators
• More than 50 ways to Build Team Consensus
• 36 Tools for Building Spirit in Learning Communities
• Leading Every Day: 124 Actions for Effective Leadership

Can you imagine the permutations? If as a school leader, I could/should take on 12 roles, develop 8 habits, use 36 tools and take 124 actions, that should do it, right? No problem.

Comments

[Greg Farr]

If only it were that easy! But you left out Covey's 7 habits (8 now, he added another), Schlechty's 6 systems, Marzano's 9 strategies, Clark's 55 essential rules.

And I thought I had my hands full with Moses and that tablet he brought down from the mountain top!

[Jon Becker]

I think that tablet is covered in one of the other books. Hold on...let me look...

[pete reilly]

Jon;
I recently presented on this very topic. I had slide after slide of book titles like the ones you listed here...it all adds up to nice advice that few could argue with; Yet it has little value because it feeds into the cognitive model of learning that has been around forever; meaning we believe that by memorizing and understanding the list or concepts that the book presents, somehow we'll be better leaders.

Understanding lists and leadership concepts in our head is very different than being able to DO the things in the list. I've had people tell me, "I already know about leadership" and quote me some great lines from a book; and often these people are horrible examples of leaders.

Leadership practices rather than leadership advice is what we are so often missing.

pete

[Brad Davis]

This post came at just the right time for me. As an educational leader myself I have come to the realization that you can't do it all, you can't please everyone and you are always asked to solve the unsolvable.

I am always feeling like I need to consult a manual of some sort as a way to manage the trials and tribulations of everyday life as an administrator. We are pulled in so many different directions and asked to be experts on so many different things it is a wonder we get anything accomplished.

We are all just treading water sometimes and unfortunately the minutia gets in the way of what is really important and that's leading educational reform in our schools.

Thanks for the timely post.

[Jon Becker]

Hey Pete, is that preso something you'd be willing to share via Slideshare or something of that ilk?

[pete reilly]

Brad,
So, if you eliminate the 'manual or book' approach, where do you turn to find help and support for improving your leadership skills?
pete

[Brad Davis]

I don't think that you can eliminate the "book" its a great resource to spark ideas and to see how it "should" be done. Lke a language arts teacher though, the approach should be used as just that, a resource. Something to fall back on when things get confusing.

[pete reilly]

Brad...

How about having a teacher or coach to help?

Using your analogy it's like giving a student a textbook and saying..."Okay, now learn how to be an effective leader".

A teacher/coach can make a huge difference in the process.

pete