Full Description
"Alma Harris is a world leading writer on the thinking and practice of distributed leadership. This is undoubtedly the best book that she or anyone has yet written on the subject."
—Andy Hargreaves, Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education
Boston College
"Alma Harris captures the essential challenges facing today's school and district leaders and summarizes, in precise and accessible language, important research-based lessons for practice. Her focus on building authentic relationships among all staff is both practical and a welcome antidote to an excessive focus on testing and standardization."
—Karen Seashore, Professor
University of Minnesota
The benefits of distributed leadership are yours with this research-based change process.
Distributed leadership—engaging the many rather than the few in school improvement—has long been a promising theory. But it must be implemented effectively before educators and students can reap the rewards, including improved learner outcomes and stronger organizational performance.
Distributed Leadership Matters offers pragmatic approaches for realizing these benefits. First, Alma Harris shows why harnessing educators' collective expertise is an improvement strategy worth adopting. Then she details the collaborative processes that make it happen. Insights include:
How to translate the research on distributed leadership into tangible results for your school
Methods for building the social capital necessary for sustainable institutional change
How to distribute leadership widely and wisely through professional collaboration
The old-fashioned "top-down" leadership style no longer works for today's schools. Distributed Leadership Matters is a bold step into the future.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Leading Educational Change and Improvement
What Does Educational Change for Improvement Require?
2. Leading System Reform
What Are the Challenges of Reform at Scale?
3. Future Leaders
Why Distributed Leadership Is Needed More Than Ever in a Changing World
4. Distributed Leadership: The Facts
What We Know About Distributed Leadership and Improved Outcomes and Performance
5. Distributed Leadership: The Dark Side
How Distributed Leadership Can be Misused, Misrepresented, and Misconstrued
6. Distributed Leadership: Building Social Capital
How Distributed Leadership, in the Form of Professional Collaboration, Contributes to Building Social Capital for Organizational Improvement
7. Distributed Leadership: Professional Learning Communities
How Distributed Leadership, in the Form of Powerful Collaborative Teams, Contributes to Organizational Improvement
8. Distributed Leadership: Professional Learning with Impact
Leading Effective and Disciplined Professional Collaboration
References
Appendix
Index
