One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in creating and sustaining an administrative professional learning community (PLC) is time. Administrators are constantly deluged by the tyranny of the urgent. It is a Herculean task to carve out time for PLCs, but it is imperative to do so. In this article, the authors describe how an administrative PLC…

In his book "The Speed of Trust," Stephen Covey identifies trust as the one thing that, if missing, will "destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love." When the Creative-Moniker…

Everything in K-12 education is instant, short-term, the quick fix. As such, little attention is paid to long-term planning and even less to leadership succession or stability. The change agenda is the leadership agenda and from the very top, both are being mismanaged. More and more, the author is seeing this with his own eyes in his studies of…

The complex nature of a school district demands a unique relationship between the superintendent and the board president. Forging a positive relationship requires a special kind of navigational skill. The author draws lessons for doing so from David Hargreaves' classic 1975 book "Interpersonal Relations and Education". The author outlines some…

The need for organizations to adapt nimbly in a fast-paced global society is a given. But ask any education leader or business person how to do that in a way that truly drives the organization forward and one may get silence--or worse, a weary look that bespeaks a grievous experience. Leaders know all too well that the gap between a new idea and…

Administrative power for some school teachers can be an aphrodisiac that can be applied negatively, especially when a leader has devastating instinct for the weaknesses of others. A leader's intellect and heart closes shop and ceases to function when drunk on power. In this article, the author describes how the use of administrative power can be…

Over the years, the author has participated in many gatherings where business leaders have been invited to provide educational leaders with advice regarding the way they should lead their schools. Some of these events proved satisfying, but others proved disastrous. In this article, the author argues that it is a mistake to invite business leaders…

In this article, the authors take a quick comparative look at two superintendents and their districts to better understand how both of them, considered strong leaders, can have very different effects on mean district-level student achievement. Their recent meta-analysis of the effects of district-level leadership on student achievement, summarized…

The value of the doctorate in educational administration has been debated in recent years over its appropriateness as a qualification for superintendency. Underlying these debates are two overlapping trends. One is increasing program availability and shifts in institutional type, and the second is changes in program content and dissertation…

In this article, the author points out that it is no secret that school leaders fail not because they lack brains, determination, knowledge and technical skills, but because of what is characterized as "style" or "people skills." Daniel Goleman, author of several books on the subject, cites his own research and the work of others in arguing that…

Board meetings are the time and place where school boards act. In fact, only when coming together as a body in a legal meeting do school board members become a board. Effective board meetings are the first prerequisite for an effective board. Furthermore, what parents and voters see at board meetings determines largely what they think about their…

The author shares that he came across "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey in the early 1990s when he was a central-office administrator in a small school district just outside of Boston. He considers the book foundational as he thinks about leadership. (He is now superintendent in a central Massachusetts…

It takes strong leadership skills to successfully run an entity as large and complex as an urban school district, much less turn around one that is low-performing. Most people don't realize that many urban school systems are as large as the biggest companies in America. Yet, most school district leaders and school board members have no specific…

How school board presidents view the communication behaviors of their superintendents was addressed in a doctoral dissertation by H. Steve Sprunger at Purdue University. His study examined the communication behaviors and perceived leadership strength of superintendents as perceived by board presidents. This study was conducted by sending out the…

A participant-observer at management and other meetings at a large urban school district attributes the district's successes to systemic governance, the district as an instructional leader, and the superintendent as a teacher on special assignment. (MLF)