Chapter 12 --  The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership
Leadership for the Twenty-First Century

The job of any educational leader has become increasingly complex and constrained.

The Context for Dependency

Dependency is created by two interrelated conditions:  overload and vulnerability to packaged solutions.  

The system fosters dependency on the part of principles.

Leaders are especially vulnerable to the latest recipe for success.

There is no external answer that will substitute for the complex work of changing one's own situation.

The first insight is that there is no definitive answer to the "how" question.

Realizing that there is no answer can be quite liberating.  Leaders craft their own theories of change.

They become less vulnerable to and less dependent on external answers.

To gain new insights that can form and guide actions toward greater success use these four guidelines:

1. Respect Those You Want to Silence
   Resistance to a new initiative can actually be highly instructive.
2. Move Toward the Danger in Forming New Alliances
   School reform cannot succeed without community reform.
   Today's environment is dangerous but laced with opportunities.
   Successful schools are not only collaborative internally, but have the confidence, capacity, and political wisdom to reach out, forming new alliances.
3. Manage Emotionally as Well as Rationally
   Relaxation exercises, physical fitness, recalling a higher purpose, teaming up with a supportive peer, separating self from role, and ignoring the temptation to get even are possible reactions.
   The emotionally intelligent leader also helps teachers, students, parents, and others create an environment of support.
   Managing emotionally means putting a high priority on reculturing, not merely restructuring.
   Reculturing requires strong emotional involvement from principals and others and pays emotional dividends.
4. Fight for Lost Causes (Be Hopeful When It Counts )
   The best definition of hope is "unwarranted optimism".
   Once leaders realize that having hope is independent of knowing how things might turn out it becomes a deeper resource.
   It is important that leaders show they are prepared to fight for lost causes, because they set the tone for so many others.

Scale Up

Making reform widespread is related to replicating the conditions of successful change.

These conditions involve scores of principals and other educational leaders breaking the bonds of dependency that the current system fosters.

To be successful, leaders will require very different characteristics than those expected of leaders in the last decade.

The education leader of the 21st century will find greater peace of mind by knowing that there is no clear solutions.

"It is the walking that beats the path.  It is not the path that makes the walk".

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Jossey-Bass Publishers.  The Jossey-Bass Reader on Education Leadership.