Full Description
In a rapidly changing world with threats to the sustainability of the environment, societies, institutions and the people within them, a crucial question for educational leaders needs to be: what are these threats to sustainability, and how does the role of the educational leader need adapting to meet them through this century?
Mike Bottery unpacks this question by examining how major terms in the field are used, mis-used, or mis-understood, before looking specifically at five covert threats: wicked problems, positive feedback, exponential growth, inappropriate degrees of connectivity, and tipping points. He looks at the impact these threats have upon sustainability at micro-, meso-, and macro- levels, and how understanding and meeting these threats needs to change the educational leader's thought, values, and practice. Bottery argues that such awareness should not only change the focus of educational institutions, but also the focus of those inspecting such institutions. Such recognition then needs to become part of the cultural zeitgeist of present-day societies if future generations are to inherit a sustainable world. In so doing, The Educational Leader in a World of Covert Threats provides an original, timely and essential re-think of the educational leader's role which makes it unique in the educational leadership literature.
Contents
Preface
Part I: A Background of Inaction and Complexity
1. The need for a new Model of Education Leadership
2. Educational Leadership and the Threat of Inaction.
3. Educational Leadership for an Age of Complex Problems
Part II: Covert Threats
4. Unmasking the Threats of Covert Processes
5. Planning for the Future by Scanning the Deep Past
6. Educational Leadership in an Uncertain Political Future
7. Understanding and Preparing for Tipping Points
Part III: Leadership Responses
8. The Educational Leader's Role in Preventing Tipping Points
9. Using the Covid-19 Experience to Respond to Future Threats
10. The Ethical Commitments of Steward Leaders
11. New Frames for Accountability and Inspection
12. Educational Leadership for a World of Covert Threats
Afterword
References
Index
