Rapidly changing engineering designs and business scenarios make it essential for engineers and technical personnel to be trained to be effective team players and project managers. This paper reports the experiences gained in developing and implementing a workshop to train engineers at a steel manufacturing plant. The objective of the workshop was…

The author offers lessons learned from three related initiatives of the Wheelock College Institute for Leadership and Career Initiatives from 1997 to 2003 that aimed to promote authentic early care and education leadership by people who came from the community and who hold the same values as the population being served: "Taking the Lead",…

Background: The effectiveness of parent management training (PMT) as a treatment for child behaviour problems is reduced by high attrition rates. One difficulty with engaging mothers is that, by definition, PMT is directed at the parent, yet many parents believe the "cause" of the problem lies within the child. Hence the model of therapy offered…

Purpose: The paper argues that virtual situated learning environments (VSLE), designed as authentic learning experiences, can provide managers with broader learning opportunities while also cater for the learning needs of the increasing number of peripatetic managers. Design/methodology/approach: An action learning methodology, using first person…

Educational Leadership students need to spend significant time in authentic school contexts working alongside well-prepared mentor principals to be adequately prepared for complex leadership roles. Through carefully-designed internships, students link school leadership theory from academic coursework with actual improvisational practice. This type…

This article provides a response to the previous papers. It sets out a descriptive overview of the National College for School Leadership and then discusses issues of: scale; on-the-job learning; innovation as technological and networking; start-up organizations; leadership effects; international awareness; evaluating leadership and impact. The…

Shows how management training at Lloyds TSB Independent Financial Advisers has helped to boost enthusiasm among line managers, improve communication between departments and create a new momentum within the organization. Describes how the Open University Business School professional certificate in management was combined with activities to enrich…

Purpose: The purpose of this research study was to examine the role perceptions of superintendents and their supervisors in Palestine regarding the roles and training needs of superintendents. It was part of a larger study conducted by the Department of Administration and Educational Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.…

The fields of Management Science (MS) and Operations Management (OM) have co-existed in business school curricula for over a half century. This paper examines five trends that point toward a bright future for Operations Management in the business curriculum. These trends include an increasing emphasis on global competition, the growth of the…

This study investigates how distributed team members evaluate their own and others' knowledge when they engage in goal-directed activities and seek shared understanding. Twenty-three manager-level employees of a municipal organisation worked as two distributed teams for two months. Their work was supported with a visualisation tool, which was…

Leadership is about transformation. It is the opportunity to transform people, places, and possibilities. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to identify means to assess leadership development and performance. Although leadership development and performance can be assessed, school systems often lack consistent methods,…

If one "googles" the term "professional development" on the Web, he/she gets definitions such as "the development of skills both tangential and essential to one's current occupation." Digging a little deeper does not yield a common definition, just distinctions among education, training, and credentialing. Despite the…

In qualification programmes based on action learning, there has hitherto been little articulation of what is particular to research dissertations undertaken in an action learning mode. This article addresses the questions of what such a dissertation entails and how it can be undertaken, supervised and examined. It discusses some of the foundations…

This paper describes the results of a study that investigated the nature and consequences of a unique set of university-sponsored school leadership preparation programs. Begun in 1987, the Danforth Foundation Program for the Preparation of School Principals (DPPSP) was part of a two-pronged effort to more fully develop the potential of school…

Although there are about 15,000 school districts in the United States, each headed by a superintendent, research on the superintendency has not been systematic and dynamic. This book presents a synthesis of research on the superintendency. Chapters include the following: (1) "Smoke, Mirrors, or Reality: Another Instructional Leader" (Shirley M.…