While the importance of principals has long been recognized by educators and researchers, empirical studies on the effectiveness and distribution of principals have been undermined by the lack of data to study principals, their complex work, and their impact on school outcomes. In fact, "little systematic evidence exists about the…

School leaders face tensions at global, macropolitical, policy, and school levels resulting from simultaneous and contradictory influences toward sameness and difference. Government and school leaders can deal with these tensions by challenging the sameness that typifies school operations and valuing and learning from differences among school…

Assistant principals are a neglected variable in the effective schools equation. The traditional conceptualization of assistant principals as disciplinarians still prevails, despite these administrators' usefulness as change agents, motivators, ethical models, community relations agent, care givers, and innovators. (MLH)

Principals can effectively manage their workday by prioritizing paperwork, creating tickler and flyer files, postponing missed phone calls, stashing supplies, structuring agendas, scheduling meetings, recording phone numbers on calendars, avoiding procrastination, delegating responsibility, deputizing delegates, making a faculty suggestion board,…

Summarizes study that interviewed 25 rural teachers identified as having strong "principal potential." Only five teachers expressed interest in becoming principals. The seven "maybe's" felt principalship would have to change significantly before they would consider it. Many viewed the principalship as too distant from the…

Humor can be a powerful, productive tool to help teachers succeed in the classroom. Humor cultivates spirit, alleviates stress, improves communication, and diffuses conflict. Reviews types of humor (satire, cheerfulness, eccentricity, and sarcasm), discusses humor's classroom uses and benefits, and shows how school leaders can introduce humor into…

Recent research on wildland fire fighting supports educational administrators' use of the fire-fighting metaphor to describe the nature of their work. Fire-fighting nuances illuminate subtle conditions in educational organizations that increase their vulnerability to failure. These parallels suggest five management conditions that determine…

Experience and research on superintendents reveal the enormous conflict and tension in a changing, ambiguous position. This article discusses the significance of "outsider" superintendents. It examines how outsider status (negatively) influences superintendents' effectiveness, how these effects can be reduced, and whether women and minorities…

Argues that existing accountability standards for educational leaders are inadequate to accommodate the diverse contextual realities of working life. Raises critical questions concerning the most appropriate philosophical views of contemporary educational leadership and how to assess such leadership. Organizations as open systems are superior to…

Applies Stephen Covey's seventh habit (sharpening the saw/self-renewal) to needed personal and professional development activities for school business officials. Key activities include networking, mentoring, surfing the net, professional reading, formal learning, and reinventing oneself. Self-reinvention is the Covey habit that recharges,…

To discover corporate America's perceptions on effective leadership qualities for the 21st century, questionnaires were sent to chief executive officers of Mobil, McDonnell Douglas, 3M, Pfitzer, and IBM. Respondents said that integrity, self-esteem, and decision-making ability are essential leadership characteristics. Desired affective qualities…