Learning to Lead Together
The Promise and Challenge of Sharing Leadership
- Janet H. Chrispeels - Ph.D., certified clinical psychologist, professor Emeritus, Faculty of Human Sciences, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Ontario and Founder and President of the Ottawa Institute for Obj
Features and Benefits:
} the text covers a timely topic. This is the first text to explore the importance of principals sharing and distributing leadership. Until recently, most of the focus has been on teachers and collaborative leadership building.
} through real-life single and multiple case studies, the text addresses how principals and their staff's struggle with the challenge of shared leadership, and how they attain some of the promise leading to teacher growth and development, as well as to higher levels of student learning.
} the cases in the text provide pre-service principals and administrators with excellent examples of the real-life applications of various theoretical concepts.
} a variety of models and approaches of shared and distributed leadership are presented in school, district, and regional contexts, allowing students to see the commonalties that these settings share, as well as the differences between them.
The text discusses strategies that principals use to share leadership and the impact that those strategies have on teachers, school culture, and learning opportunities for students.
Examples of preparation programs and the support that teachers want, if shared leadership is to be effectively implemented to meet student needs, provide future principals with the tools and insight that they need to be successful.
Four Principals and Their Reflection on the Process of Change
“Too often the response to good ideas is ‘it won’t work here.’ This book respects that perspective by providing school leaders with studies from the field that describe efforts that have and have not worked. The concept of shared leadership is presented in a ‘real world’ context, including the voices of those who don’t want it. The reader will develop a better understanding of what true collaboration can look like along with the challenges leaders may face as the culture of their school adapts to change.”
Learning to Lead Together connects leadership theory with experiences from the field, it is very useful to practitioners and to individuals preparing for formal school leadership positions.
“Janet Chrispeel’s Learning to Lead Together provides a rich anthology of real experiences of school based leaders caught in the vortex of leading and learning on the one hand and teaching and leading on the other. I highly recommend this new work to students seeking real answers to real problems.”
