Coles, Martin J. and Southworth, Geoff. (Eds.) (2005).
Developing Leadership: Creating the Schools of Tomorrow.
Buckingham: Open University Press.
Pp. xxi + 180
$35.15 ISBN 0335215424
Reviewed by Jorge Aguilar
Arizona State University
December 27, 2005
At a time when social complexity seems to increase and
educational challenges become more demanding, ways of improving
schooling seem to be distant. Education policies come and go, and
a variety of strategies implemented to bring about change have
failed. In this context, noted educational scholar Michael
Fullan, (2001, 2003, 2005) has put forward
“leadership” as a key element that can affect both
educational change and student learning and achievement. The
term, however, has been used so ubiquitously that its meaning has
become vague and imprecise. A range of definitions and
interpretations can be found in the literature. Consensus on its
meaning is still lacking.
Developing Leadership: Creating the Schools of Tomorrow
is just about that: reaching a consensus by touching on a number
of key issues in the development of the skills school leaders
will need to run the schools of tomorrow. It is also about
“opening up debate and describing possibilities.” (p.
xii) Edited by Martin Coles and Geoff Southworth, heads of the
research department of National College of School Leadership, the
book also examines leadership development programs and strategies
in different regions of the world.
The book, which is part of the Professional Learning Series of
the Open University Press, is the outcome of Learning from
best practice worldwide, an international conference that
brought together researchers and experts on leadership from the
U.S., Britain, Europe, Canada, Australia, and Asia. The
conference was organized by the National College of School
Leadership that was established by the British Government in
2002, and whose raison d'être is “to ensure
that school leaders are supported, developed and have access to
research and leading-edge thinking on leadership from across the
world” (p. xiii).
Ivor Goodman and Andy Hargreaves, editors of the Professional
Learning Series, describe in the preface the general picture of
the current situation of education in Britain, the U.S., and
Canada as a point of departure for the book. They critique how
schools have been invaded by standardization and how “years
of obsession with the management of standards and targets in
tested achievement are giving way to a new era of leadership that
will create learning for all in a creative and complex knowledge
society.” (p. xiii)
They assert that teaching is in a predicament and that
“it is the core profession, the key change agent in
today’s knowledge society.” (p. xi) They suggest that
educational efforts should focus on student learning and
achievement, which means there should also be a commitment to
improving teachers’ and school leaders’ professional
learning, knowledge and development. As Hargreaves and Goodson
put it, “leaving no child behind means leaving no teacher
or leader behind either.” (p. xi)
Key leadership issues
Developing leaders for the future. In the first
chapter, Dean Fisk, proposes an answer to the question, how
should leaders be prepared for their future as leaders of
learning? He critiques the fixation of educational agencies and
policy makers on practices that maintain a focus on lists of
proficiencies and a rigid profile in the training and development
of school leaders. In reaction to this fixation, he advocates an
approach through which future leaders could be identified,
recruited and selected based on their potential to become ongoing
learners of leadership. Fisk makes the case for explicit
attention to such human qualities as ethics, common sense,
imagination, intuition and memory. He explains that
these qualities would help leaders to develop the skills and
tools they will need as future school leaders of learning.
The preparation of future leaders, according to Fisk, should
be based on a holistic rather than a reductionist view. Training
programs based on a holistic focus should make leaders aware of
understanding learning, making connections, futures
thinking, contextual knowledge, critical thinking, political
acumen andemotional understanding. He sees these
“learnings” as essential for leaders to understand
and face future challenges. Another important issue he highlights
is the immersion of future leaders into ”communities of
practice” (Wenger, 1998) and their ability to become active
members of such communities.
Leadership succession and sustainability. Putting
together the qualities, learnings, and involvement in communities
of practice noted by Fisk requires thoughtful consideration of
leadership succession. Hargreaves, in Chapter 2, urges
educational authorities to plan carefully and control the
frequency of succession (rotation and replacement) of school
leaders. Efforts to achieve sustainability, a vital issue in
educational leadership and change, are dependent on leaders
staying in schools at least five years provided goals are being
achieved. In addition, leadership should be favored over
management, because management produces order and stability
whereas leadership yields change and progress that can lead to
student achievement.
Distributed leadership. Limiting the frequency of
leadership succession and lengthening the stay of leaders in
school is not enough. Leadership practice is identified and
shaped by the interaction of leaders, followers and the context
they find themselves in. That is, leadership is distributed,
stretched over the leaders, co-leaders and their situations (Cf.
Spillane et al. in Chapter 4). In distributed leadership,
collaboration and interdependencies are recognized and
encouraged. The leader is conceptualized not as the know-it-all
but as a person who identifies and makes the most of the
potential of school co-leaders; namely, he or she empowers them
to accomplish their common goal: improving student learning.
A special emphasis is placed on leadership practice as a
critical element of distributed leadership, which is achieved
through the interrelation of leaders, followers and tools.
Leaders not only work with co-leaders but also make use of tools
to make leadership practice possible. It is a tripartite
structure that assists schools in accomplishing their goals.
Examples of tools they discuss are materials artifacts,
observation protocols, and tests.
Leadership development in situ.
Context-sensitive leadership development is a crucial element
that underlines most of the chapters. For example, Stott and Kong
in Chapter 7 contend that effective learning and ongoing
development take place in the contexts where school leaders work
and that attempts to separate them from their work cultures
should not be allowed. It is also argued that when it comes to
designing the preparation and development of school leaders,
their opinions and experience should be taken into account.
School leadership should be context-based and activities that
raise awareness of the elements that make up school
leaders’ environments should be favored over
generalizations. Generalizations tend to overlook key contextual
influences that can make a difference in understanding their
situations better and in decision making processes.
Moreover, some of the chapters suggest that leaders cannot be
separated from their settings, from their co-leaders and from
where student learning comes into action, where all human and
organizational elements mingle to bring about students’
learning. Leaders’ development and leadership ability are
too important to divorce them from their educational milieus. In
the case of preparation of aspiring school leaders, efforts
should be made to bring them close to practical situations and to
make them work with mentors and to spend time as interns.
Professional learning communities. In various
chapters, the contributors reiterate the importance of making
schools learning communities because they can build their
capacity to deal with change and to face the external forces that
shape schools. Leading robust learning communities, however,
requires the establishment of good relations and trust among the
members of the learning community. It also calls for a set of
conditions including the creation of a culture of learning, the
ongoing development of leaders themselves, teachers and support
staff, and attention to their affective side. Other conditions
are evidence-based decision making, pooling everybody’s
capabilities to face challenges and solve problems collectively,
and interconnecting the programs, projects and schemes that
schools operate to bring about change.
Developing Leadership: Creating the Schools of Tomorrow
undoubtedly reaches the consensus it sought and makes it clear
that to provide the foundations for leadership development and
the creation of the schools of tomorrow, a number of
developmental and constructivist practices and theories should be
considered. For example, it is evident throughout the book that
to become a good school leader, the preparation and development
of aspiring or existing leaders ought to be context-specific,
process-based, and group- and goal-oriented. It is also apparent
that developing leadership is about identifying and distributing
leadership, achieving sustainability, influencing rather than
coercing change, creating learning communities, planning
succession, thinking strategically about Information and
Communication Technology, and being an ongoing learner of
leadership. But above all, it is clear that leadership
development should be valued and perceived as having one
paramount goal: paving the way for successful student learning
and achievement in a just environment.
A strength of Developing leadership is that in the
description and evaluation of the leadership development programs
and projects in the book, the contributors introduce concepts and
ideas that are clarified and supported by research findings,
professional experience, vignettes, and up-to-date literature.
They also make use of an engaging narrative that is coherent and
accessible to anyone interested in becoming familiar with the
principles and practice of leadership development for the first
time, or those interested in furthering their understanding and
knowing more about leadership practices and innovations in other
parts of the world. Any educationist will find Developing
Leadership thought provoking and an opportunity to reflect on
his or her professional and academic goals and practices.
On a more critical note, it should be also noted that
contributors to this book tacitly offer suggestions for the
creation of the schools of tomorrow and for the preparation of
the school leaders for the future. A more explicit and extensive
discussion would have been welcome. In the discussion of such
important issues, implied suggestions should be brought more into
the open. Let us not disguise them in the subtlety of the printed
word.
Developing Leadership provides a lot of introspection
and insight for education stakeholders, and more specifically for
policy makers and education authorities at many levels.
Developing Leadership could be used as a springboard for
thinking aloud within schools, teacher education programs and
colleges of education to find ways to imagine and then put into
practice innovative techniques for developing the school leaders
of tomorrow. But as the book often reminds us, educational
leadership should not be seen as an end in itself but as a means
to achieve the key goal of improving student learning and
achievement.
References
Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a Culture of Change. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fullan, M. (2003). The Moral Imperative of School
Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and Sustainability.
Thousand, Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and
practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
About the Reviewer
Jorge Aguilar is a PhD student in Educational
Leadership and Policy Studies at the College of Education of
Arizona State University. His areas of interest include teacher
education and learning, teacher belief systems, classroom
dynamics and curriculum theory and development.
Copyright is retained by the first or sole author,
who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.
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