Unmasking School Leadership

Synopsis

This book is a longitudinal life history of the lives and work of primary school principals in Ireland. It provides a unique opportunity to peer inside the realities of leading schools in changing times. In a system that until recently did not prepare principals for the onerous roles and responsibilities, a small system with limited mobility, inter-personal relationships emerge as critical, frequently privileged over professional relationships. Consequently, principals struggle to bring about change, to build trust in order to cultivate a transformative leadership agenda, while several aspects of systemic structures and processes emerge as constraints on leadership capacity building. In the absence of comprehensive leadership portfolio development, classroom teachers, catapulted into the principal's office, tend to be cautious and careful in ways that tend to perpetuate the status quo while putting a premium on the exercise of soft power and an over-reliance on the good will of colleagues. Several of the 'leadership lessons' that emerge from this in-depth analysis concur with an increasing international consensus that due to complexity and increasingly performative policy demands, learning about leadership for all is an absolute necessity. However, care must be taken to avoid overly scripted programmes. Critical to the cultivation of a professionally responsible leadership disposition, rather than capitulation to 'technologies of control,' is professional renewal cultivated through adequate attention to the Zone of Proximal Distance.

Copyright:

2015

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9789401794336

Publisher:

Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

Date of Addition:

09/16/16

Copyrighted By:

Springer

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Education

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.