To be an effective school board president, certain leadership qualities and personality characteristics are useful: (1) trust, (2) effective communication, (3) responsibility versus authority, (4) control of meetings, (5) committee structure, (6) problem-solving approaches, (7) board development, (8) superintendent relations, and (9) mission. (KDP)

Summarizes a study testing relationship patterns among principal, teacher, and student variables. Participants were randomly selected Arab students (n=800) and teachers (n=160) from 20 schools in northern Israel. Democratic leadership appears to be a central factor of positive school climate in Arab schools in Israel. The social and professional…

Describes informal leadership opportunities for library staff. Identifies three key characteristics: vision, courage, and the ability to make things happen through others. Discusses requirements for successfully leading from below; hostile, neutral, and supportive environments; and benefits. (AEF)

The Management Profile, an integrated appraisal method designed to determine school leaders' individual strengths and weaknesses, is a three-tiered model of leadership roles, functions, and tasks. After receiving a confidential report profiling their individual management characteristics, administrators can develop a professional development plan…

Fiedler's contingency theory relates school effectiveness to a combination of principals' leadership style and situational favorability for the principal. Data from teacher questionnaires on school climate and effectiveness and measures of principal's leadership in 176 Canadian elementary schools did not support Fiedler's model. Contains 54…

Borrowing from theories of adult organizations, investigates how teacher leadership style is related to use of power, social climate, and student-affective performance in a sample of 678 classrooms in 190 Hong Kong primary schools. A teacher's leadership and use of power are interrelated in leading a class of students. Also, leadership style is…

Discusses characteristics of instructional leadership as a form of proactive administrative behavior. Proactive administration is built on awareness of personal beliefs, understanding of organizations, instructional leadership as an ongoing process, sensitivity to alternative perspectives, consistency of personal behavior, and ability to…

Hall and four colleagues review "Dancing on the Ceiling: A Study of Women Managers in Education" (Paul Chapman, 1996). Reviewers agree that Hall's profiles of six British elementary and secondary women headteachers should improve readers' understanding of female managers' development and their preference for "soft,"…

To help organizations respond effectively to external challenges, college and university leaders must understand how important culture is in determining behaviors, and how the institution's culture responds to change. Identifying an organization's culture and any misalignments between that culture and leadership styles that adversely affect…

Staff quality is an important school attribute. Strong, determined leadership requires a principal's personal readiness to take issue with underperforming teachers, challenge cynicism and negative elements in the school, and recruit, retain, and develop high-quality, dedicated staff. A collaborative leadership culture emerges from empowering even…

A study of 18 exemplary Georgia principals found that major psychodynamic changes can result from developing a shared-leadership style. There were changes in motivation, role conflict, and use of power. Principals sometimes wondered if they were needed, but most reaped major rewards: satisfaction, pride of accomplishment, and good press. Contains…

Estimated collaborative supervision's effects on five teacher affective variables (commitment to teaching, commitment to school, trust in administration, trust in teachers, and desire for collaboration) and two personal-decision variables (efficacy expectations and outcome expectations). Teacher implementations favored collaboration and commitment…

A principal describes her experience under the changes implemented recently in England and Wales. She describes leadership challenges and some strategies that use micropolitics to effect positive outcomes. She successfully employed tension and confrontation as steps toward change and encouraged participation in decision making. (MLH)

A survey of 272 Asian, African, and Arab master of business administration graduates from British business schools showed that schools had an ethnocentric approach to leadership teaching. Possible causes were lack of alternative theories, lack of non-U.S. research, and a low level of faculty expertise and interest in international dimensions of…

Considers how particular approaches to leading and managing laboratory technicians in some (British) secondary-school science departments enhanced collegiality. In some schools, lab paraprofessionals are involved in decision-making. Trust, delegation based on ability, cooperative values, inclusive leadership styles, and a sense of belonging were…