In this commentary, Stech develops a rationale for leadership educators by discussing education, training, and development. He guides the reader through a discussion of instructional types and how each differs from the others. He provides a current view for how research in leadership education may be distinguished by the intention of the…

The objective of this study is to identify principal leadership styles and teacher preferred principal leadership styles, as well as to examine the independent and combined effects of these variables on the TAKS Mathematics achievement scores of elementary students. School leadership affects every aspect of an institution. Studies reveal that the…

In his new book, author and international keynoter Douglas Reeves addresses a major challenge faced by today's school leaders: an ever-growing load of programs and initiatives. Reeves contends that program overload not only taxes leadership resources, but actually hurts rather than improves student performance. Drawing on recent research findings,…

With a focus on leadership, this study examines the leadership characteristics of principals in schools that are recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools by the United States Department of Education. This mixed methodology study utilizes the causal comparative method to compare what teachers consider to be effective leadership characteristics of…

This qualitative research addressed presidential leadership during the strategic transition of the respective Boards of Trustees at Gardner-Webb and Wingate Universities (private, Christian institutions in North Carolina). In addition to interviewing each institutional President, personal 60-minute interviews were conducted with selected faculty…

With the creation of the Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC), New Leaders for New Schools hoped to accomplish two broad and ambitious goals. The first was to identify and reward leadership practices driving significant achievement gains in high-poverty, urban schools. The second was to learn from those practices and make them more widely…

The purpose of this inquiry was to examine the effectiveness of male and female educational leaders who made use of the invitational leadership style of leadership in their k-12 school settings. Study participants consisted of 14 principals (7 female and 7 male) and 164 teachers. While quantitative findings revealed a statistically significant…

Our rapidly-changing, ambiguous, global business arena demands a unique and evolving set of insights and capabilities by which leaders may effectively navigate this new terrain. Mentoring can accomplish exactly that, as its processes orient, train, and advance the skills, knowledge, and experiences of aspiring leaders. Best utilized, mentoring is…

Purpose: The purpose was to identify whether the principals in three Southern California schools that have sustained API scores of at least 900 and state and similar schools ranking of a 10 for three or more consecutive years, demonstrate the eleven behaviors outlined by Marzano, Waters, and McNulty, in successfully achieving second-order change.…

What does it take to be a great school leader? An award-winning former principal poses this question to renowned school leaders and experts in the field to provide you with insight into the actions that lead to success. These giants in the field of educational leadership--including Baruti Kafele, Rick DuFour, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and James…

The purpose of this study was to understand the types of texts currently being used and recommended within the field of leadership education. Data triangulation methods were used to identify academic and popular texts for a content analysis. Themes emerged relating to context, writing style, method, and content. (Contains 2 tables.)

Leadership succession planning is a means to identify the need for systematic and purposeful change in education. Policy, planning, and research suggest that there is an acute shortage of school leaders globally. By illumination of these facts, we detail and describe what is happening within a Canadian context, and this we argue is similar to what…

Purpose: This study tests key constructs of sociocultural and organizational learning theories with quantitative methods to better understand the nature and impact of district and school leadership and actions on the quality of programs of family and community involvement. Research Design: Survey data from a "nested" sample of 24 districts and 407…

The notion of "success" is narrowly defined and appropriated within an educational context. Typically limited to objective measures of organizational productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency, "successful" principal practices, we argue, engender action and attention to a broader array of issues and interrelationships. In this study, we conducted…

In recent years international trends towards teacher empowerment and leadership have gained increased attraction in East Asia's education policy and practice. Yet, as scholars have noted, the values underlying these practices often conflict with traditional cultural norms of East Asian societies which stress hierarchical and status differences.…