Leaders need to be forceful--to assert themselves and push others to action. They must also be enabling--to discover and bring out the capabilities of others. The problem is that many executives see forceful leadership and enabling leadership as mutually exclusive or strongly favor one approach over the other, thus lacking the versatility they…

The model for school-linked services is based on the ideal of providing a coherent and seamless web among school professionals and other service agencies. However, schools are often organized around specialized functions that are not wholly aligned and coordinated in function and purpose. This paper examines the nature of schools as "aggregative"…

Experience shows that teamwork produces powerful results. Working in a team environment, however, presents its own set of challenges. This handbook provides U.S. Department of Education managers and employees with guidance to develop high-performing teams. Based on input from agency employees throughout the country, the handbook was designed to…

"Vision" is one of the most frequently used buzzwords in the education literature of the 1990s. This digest presents an overview of visionary leadership, which many education experts consider to be a make-or-break task for the school leader. It discusses various definitions of vision, the significance of vision for organizations, the…

Good relationships between community colleges and the businesses in their communities can lend company expertise to college programs and increase corporate contributions to the college's foundation. A business roundtable, which establishes a solid relationship between corporate sponsors and the college and focuses on an important current topic, is…

This publication examines the situations in which school-based management has worked and, conversely, those in which it failed to meet expectations. It attempts to identify exactly what school-based management (SBM) is and what it is not. Information was obtained from interviews with researchers and practitioners, a review of literature, and a…

This book presents interactive problem-solving situations based on the principles of Total Quality Management. Following the introductory chapter, the second chapter describes the two stages of the problem-solving process: (1) analysis of the problem and its causes, and (2) identification of a solution. Each stage is comprised of three…

This book presents profiles of schools that have demonstrated the power of Deming's Total Quality Management (TQM) principles. It describes schools that have successfully applied those strategies for change. The book explores what public education needs most--a compelling but flexible action plan for improvement. Chapter 1 offers a rationale for…

To design a school where all children succeed means creating a place that puts learning, rather than competition, at the heart of the process. This book does not propose Total Quality Management (TQM) as the cure for improving performance of U.S. schools, but rather argues that schools as a place and name should be replaced with the term…

This reference guide serves as an index for an 11-volume series of handbooks that offer guidelines to school administrators on the application and implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to education--Total Quality Education (TQE). The topics are listed in alphabetical order to show the corresponding volume and page number(s).…

Ways in which roles are being redefined as school systems move toward organizational structures based on shared decision making are described in this paper. Specifically, teachers need training to function as effective decision makers and principals must learn to be instructional facilitators. Principals acting as facilitators must possess skills…

Because the summer of 1992 seemed a good time to reflect broadly on the many directions in which the technologies of the new Information Society are moving, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program convened a meeting of experts, leaders, and representatives of various information technology interests to lay the groundwork for future,…

Virtually all British secondary (high) schools and many primary (elementary) schools feature what is called a senior management team (SMT), typically consisting of the headteacher (principal), one or more deputy heads (vice principals), and other teachers. To explore how SMTs are working, a survey questionnaire was mailed to 150 headteachers in…

This book proposes that organizations must change their culture and that they must define what the new culture should look like. It states that the need to change the culture is a need to build a "development culture," which includes behaviors seen as desirable in employees and managers to keep organizations competitive in a rapidly changing…

The last few years have witnessed continuous power shifts in the information structure of organizations. As a result of these changes, end-user computing (EUC) has been growing at a tremendous rate. This paper discusses the three functions of Information Centers (IC) to support EUC in organizations: training, technical support, and control. A…