Superintendents from eight southeastern United States school districts self-described their leadership styles across the choices of autocratic, laissez-faire, democratic, situational, servant, or transformational. When faced with this array of choices, the superintendents chose with arguable equitableness, indicating that successful leaders can…

Veteran school board member, Richard E. Mayer, takes a humorous but substantive approach to the serious relationship between school administrators and board members. While the overwhelming majority of school board members have good motives, even people who mean well can make bad moves. This book shows how to prevent good intentions from creating…

Modern principalship is often characterized as complex, convoluted, and filled with paradoxes and ambiguities. But it also has predictability, behaviors that seem constant for students, teachers, and principals. Their predictability makes them a normal part of the schoolhouse culture. This light-hearted article lists some of these constants.

While the interview remains the most relevant process by which information about an applicant can be obtained, the effective school administrator must recognize that the interview process is much more than exploring an applicant's qualifications, skills, and experiences. The interview must also be utilized as a means of leading. In other words,…

School superintendents meet situations that range from those that require quick thinking to those that need thoughtful reflection and long-range planning. But almost every challenge requires some degree of political thinking and behavior. The authors have witnessed many school leaders get into sticky predicaments as a result of trying to maneuver…

This book invites readers to contemplate careers in administrative leadership. Drawing from knowledge acquired as president of Kansas State University, and from his multifarious experiences at other universities and in government service, the author takes the reader through the cycle of a presidency--from the decision to apply, to life after…

In this article, the author reflects on 17 years of being an administrator in a community college setting. Being a good administrator requires being both a good manager and a good leader. It is the management side that turns many people away from the position, but, linking motivational theory to the situation and meeting the basic needs of those…

In this paper,we report the importance five women community college, college, and university presidents place on certain leadership tenets. Interestingly, the advice they offer for other women who aspire to leadership often ties to the perceived importance of certain tenets. We report these data and speculate about implications for future women…