Finding Your Leadership Focus

by Reeves, Douglas B.; Fullan, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780807751701
• ISBN10: 0807751707
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-12
• Publisher: Teachers College Pr

Summary

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, this book shows how leaders can pare down from a proliferation of initiatives to determine what is truly most important based on their local concerns, challenges, populations, and other school factors. Identifying a specific set of leadership practices that are more strongly associated with improvements in student achievement, Reeves provides explicit guidelines for how school leaders can improve their most critical leadership decisions by simultaneously engaging in three essential strategies: monitoring teaching and leadership practices, building high degrees of efficacy among staff members, and focusing on a smaller number of priorities. Finding Your Leadership Focus is essential reading for new and veteran principals, teacher leaders, and PLC book study groups.

Author Biography

Douglas B. Reeves is the founder of The Leadership and Learning Center, Englewood, Colorado (www.LeadandLearn.com). He was named the Brock International Laureate for his contributions to education and received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
The Law of Initiative Fatigue: Why Leadership Focus Matters	p. 1
The Costs and Benefits of Focus	p. 3
The Illogical Imperative: Do It All and Do It Now	p. 4
Forces Against Focus: Politics, Bureaucracy, and Culture	p. 7
The Good News: Change Is Possible	p. 10
The Research	p. 12
How the Research Was Conducted	p. 14
Experimental Versus Quasi-Experimental Research	p. 15
Multivariate Versus Two-Variable Analysis	p. 17
The Standard of Evidence in Educational Research	p. 19
Weighing Risks	p. 22
The Essential Cluster of Leadership Practices	p. 24
Competing Demands on Leadership Attention	p. 24
Clusters of Effective Leadership Practices	p. 26
Focus, Monitoring, and Efficacy: The Combined Impact on Performance and Morale	p. 31
From Theory to Real-World Impact	p. 33
Impact on Student Achievement	p. 33
Leadership Practices Defined	p. 36
Lead Like a Lifeguard	p. 42
Weeding the Garden	p. 43
Diversionary Weeds	p. 44
Toxic Weeds	p. 46
Unsustainable Programmatic Weeds	p. 47
Eradicating Weeds	p. 48
Focus at the System Level	p. 51
Two Essential Questions	p. 52
Toward Multidimensional Perspectives of Leadership	p. 56
Beyond Efficiency and Effectiveness: The Power of the Greater Good	p. 59
From the Pyramid to the Diamond	p. 61
Focus at the School Level	p. 65
Essential Questions Revisited	p. 65
Individual Students	p. 71
Teaching Quality	p. 73
Conclusion	p. 75
How Leaders Can Help Classroom Teachers to Focus, Save Time, and Improve Achievement	p. 76
Too Many Standards, Too Little Time	p. 77
Conclusion	p. 91
Assessing and Sustaining Your Leadership Focus	p. 92
The Leadership Focus Assessment	p. 93
Scoring Your Leadership Focus Assessment	p. 96
Sustaining Leadership Focus	p. 97
The Research in Depth	p. 101
PIMÖ (Planning, Implementation, and Monitoring) School Improvement Audit	p. 127
Galileo's Dilemma	p. 136
Guidelines for Data Walls, or "The Science Fair for Grownups"	p. 140
Science Fair Reflections: "The Treasure Hunt"	p. 143
References	p. 145
Index	p. 149
About the Author	p. 158
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