Discusses a study that examined how a stratified random sample of California school administrators characterized their use of behavior strategies. Uses a four-approach framework and nine specific managerial functions to extract a total of 36 possible sets of behavior strategies. Principals perceived the human-resource approach as most extensively…

Reports results of interviews with principals, teachers, board members, parents, and students at British schools recognized as effective. Probes administrative complexities; proposes a values-led contingency leadership model that considers the realities of successful principalship in changing times and eschews polarized concepts of transactional…

Examines traditional staff management styles, and discusses the need for a new approach to school leadership, such as a weblike, interconnected organizational structure in which all parties, leaders and staff alike, work in collaboration to achieve the common good. Outlines the development and components of such a structure. (TJQ)

Builds upon the links being made between "feminine" styles and effective management. Five female headteachers of mixed (British) secondary schools in one shire county were interviewed and asked to identify their characteristics as leaders and managers. The picture that emerged was of an "androgynous" leader able to draw upon a…

Discusses results of 3-year study of the leadership of the principals of 4 Ontario secondary school involved in the Change Frames project, requiring each school to initiate change using each of 7 frames--purpose, emotions, politics, structure, culture, learning, and leadership. (Contains 18 references.) (PKP)

Forty-four chairpersons of departments judged by academic vice presidents at randomly selected institutions to be engaged in especially effective curriculum planning were interviewed about their roles. The interviews suggested seven leadership roles used in the curriculum development process; they varied by institutional type, department size, and…

Presents research findings concerning leadership and management of (Dutch) secondary schools, using configuration theory. Distinguishes among three different management styles (two nonparticipative and one participative) that make use of six coordinating mechanisms. The participatory style was more effective and conducive to higher student math…

An emerging concept from the field of business is to manage organizations by wandering around and engaging staff and consumers in informal interactions. The author extends these ideas to settings serving children and youth. In the best seller, In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman (1982) introduced Management by Walking Around (MBWA) as an…

Not long after Dennis Roseleip received a superintendency appointment in his native state of Montana, the district's entire administrative team departed, leaving him to fill three principalships in the opening months of his new post. The sudden vacancies were not a statement on the choice of Roseleip, then 44, to lead the Cut Bank Public Schools…

The contextual leadership theory provides a frame to investigate the leadership phenomenon in a childcare context. According to the contextual leadership theory, leadership is perceived of as a socially constructed, situational and interpretive phenomenon. The purpose of the study was to investigate leadership in a Finnish childcare context based…

In New Zealand, school principals (headteachers), sometimes with a sub-committee of the school board of trustees, interview and hire their own teachers. This research examined whether school principals exhibit different styles in recruiting beginning teachers. A small group of principals was interviewed and items reflecting their views were then…

In management theory, attention to the emotions is increasing, mainly for economic reasons. Within the management of education, so-called transformational leadership is becoming the new orthodoxy, and a central aspect of it is emotional intelligence. This can be interpreted sociologically, from both Durkheimian and Weberian perspectives. It is…

An essential task of school leadership is helping bring students and faculty into the state that will facilitate their working at their best. Positive emotional states help a brain learn efficiently, whereas excess stress and negative emotions shrink the brain's capacity to learn. Goleman describes new findings in neuroscience that reveal how…

This author was once one of those nontraditional candidates who elected to leave a central office post in a metropolitan public school system, with ninety schools and four thousand five hundred teachers serving seventy-five thousand students, to head a six hundred private K-12 boarding/day school in rural Hawaii. While that had been a fulfilling…

This article addresses the philosophical questions of what it means to be a leader and how you perceive yourself as a leader. The author argues that leadership can be viewed from three perspectives: as the exercise of influence, as an expression of your values, and as a statement of your hopes and dreams. Effective leadership embraces a way of…