Contact us on (02) 8445 2300
For all customer service and order enquiries

Woodslane Online Catalogues

School Leadership: A Reality Check

  • ISBN-13: 9781925043556
  • Publisher: NSW SECONDAY PRINCIPALS' COUNCIL INC
    Imprint: NSW SECONDARY PRINCIPALS' COUNCIL INC
  • By Pam Ryan
  • Price: AUD $35.00
  • Stock: 2885 in stock
  • Availability: Order will be despatched as soon as possible.
  • Local release date: 18/11/2020
  • Format: Paperback (210.00mm X 140.00mm) Weight: 200g
  • Categories: Language [C]
Description
Author
Biography
Reviews
Google
Preview

School Leadership: A Reality Check is a guide to successfully managing a leadership role in the eduation system. This book is born out of research investigating what constitutes failures of leadership through a qualitative study of school leaders and quantitative analysis. Pam Ryan has crafted a reassuring and practical method, providing accurate guidance and elaborating on the dimensions of leadership for everyone contemplating an educational leadership role - or already in one. Ultimately, it helps readers reach their own conculsions about what it means to understand and exercise leadership.

 

Pam has addressed the absence of a publication that can assist leaders and leader aspirants to reflect on the qualities that educators require in order to be effective. There are many books on leadership but none that I am aware of that have been written in such a friendly way by a person who has spent her whole life being an effective educational leader in such a range of settings. Educational leadership is complex and challenging- and does not always go right. To have a handbook such as this proposal to inform, guide and support leaders as they seek to improve the educational needs of their students while at the same time acting with regard to the eco system, or big picture, in doing so, is invaluable. It is also topical- with a move towards agentic schools, growth mindset and the power of vulnerability, the idea of generative leadership supports and extends these contemporary educational/leadership concepts. The book initially sets out the rationale of the contents and then logically and fully unpicks each critical aspect of those contents. The Call to Action, Game Changing and Reflective Prompts all offer a practical, thoughtful structure in which to reflect and apply the contents to a leader’s particular context and situation. This is a book that leaders will go back to time and time again as different situations occur.

"Pam has addressed the absence of a publication that can assist leaders and leader aspirants to reflect on the qualities that educators require in order to be effective. There are many books on leadership but none that I am aware of that have been written in such a ‘friendly’ way by a person who has spent her whole life being an effective educational leader in such a range of settings". 

"Yes, definitely a book on generative leadership is needed. Educational leadership is complex and challenging- and does not always “go right”. To have a handbook such as this proposal to inform, guide and support leaders as they seek to improve the educational needs of their students while at the same time acting with regard to the “eco system”, or big picture, in doing so, is invaluable. It is also topical- with a move towards agentic schools, growth mindset and the power of vulnerability, the idea of generative leadership supports and extends these contemporary educational/leadership concepts. The book initially sets out the rationale of the contents and then logically and fully unpicks each critical aspect of those contents. The Call to Action, Game Changing and Reflective Prompts all offer a practical, thoughtful structure in which to reflect and apply the contents to a leader’s particular context and situation.  This is a book that leaders will go back to time and time again as different situations occur".

"There is the capacity for books on leadership to become very technical and heavy reading. I feel that Ryan has achieved a good balance between presenting the mechanics of leadership within the framework of interdependency while trying to keep it simple in her explanations". 

"The book is different, and in sharp contrast to the books on leadership that fill my library, and it will provide a welcome support for many schools and school leaders. Also, it will provide a useful update on Klimek’s (2008) book published by Sage/Corwin".

"The significant difference in this book is the previously unexplored and alternative perspective of leadership as a socially constructed complex system. In this way the text deals with the multifaceted relationships that exist in educational and other settings. The push and pull factors that influence how power relationships between a leader and various stratum in an educational hierarchy coexist, interplay and react to behaviours, decisions, emotions and competing/complementary agendas in this book adds an important contribution to the publications that embody the diverse body of research on effective leadership". 

Google Preview content