In a learning environment, leadership style reflects a leader's deeply held educational beliefs, which are mirrored in the school's culture. Case studies illustrate how the leadership styles of three principals affect school ambience. Good leadership practice means acknowledging each person's differing gifts, strengths, and concerns, and utilizing…

A study of 10 preservice teachers in Hong Kong regarding their beliefs about principals found a relationship between leadership/management style of principals they would like to be and mothers' behavior and a relationship between principals they would not like to be and fathers' interpersonal behavior. Results demonstrate the influence of personal…

Expectations for the principalship have mushroomed during the past 20 years. Principals are key reform agents and held mercilessly accountable. Candidates are in short supply. Capable principals are great assets, not heroic beings. Leadership is not centrally vested and must be distributed more broadly. (Contains 36 references.) (MLH)

Describes Bi-Polar Situational Leadership as a model for educational administration. Discusses problem solving and leadership styles, the importance of trust and concern, a balance of authority-based leading and participation-style decision making, collaboration, leader values and development, and improvement of the learning environment. (AEF)

Constructive tension can be healthy for an organization. Although win-lose solutions based on adversarial strategies are common, the management of conflicts in schools should focus on win-win problem solving, which requires creativity. Identifies collaboration as the most desirable conflict resolution strategy, and discusses conflict management…

Suggests that improving teachers' job satisfaction is paramount in an era where half of new teachers drop out of the profession in the first five years. Discusses sources of teacher dissatisfaction, benefits of collegial investment, shared leadership, support meetings, mentoring, and lessening dissatisfaction. (RS)

Five elementary schools actively engaged in inclusive approaches were studied using survey, observation, and interview methods. Findings revealed commonalties in leadership practices and core principles across this diverse sample of schools, consistent patterns in measured climate indices, and a range of administrative strategies used by…

Identifies leadership styles of Russian enterprise managers and determines how theses styles are related to employees' subjective evaluation of managerial performance. Highlights include laissez-faire leadership, transactional leadership, and transformational leadership; international leadership research; and implications for Russian leadership…

A commitment to pursue problems from multiple angles, methods, and theoretical positions means that research teams require strategies to navigate the tensions and conflict that inevitably emerge, particularly when the intent is to find ways to integrate different disciplinary perspectives.

This grounded theory study on developing a leadership identity revealed a 6-stage developmental process. The thirteen diverse students in this study described their leadership identity as moving from a leader-centric view to one that embraced leadership as a collaborative, relational process. Developing a leadership identity was connected to the…

This article describes the elements of Bolman and Deal's (1991) political frame, which are widely discussed and written about among enrollment managers. Whether it is under the guise of managing change, getting things done, understanding institutional politics, or soliciting campus-wide involvement, the issues are often thorny and leave many…

It was important, in selecting a new chancellor for Damp Valley State, to find someone to preserve and cultivate the university's reputation as a fourth-rate backwater. Founder Throckmorton P. Wallow would have been pleased with the choice, by a painfully diverse and politically correct search committee, of Estralita Gonzalez, who had formerly…

Stress occurs among all groups in a school community and can affect morale, performance, and leadership ability. This article discusses how educators must deal with and control stress. Principals must address their own stress to create a healthy school culture. Moreover, the author presents two survival strategies that can provide support and…

Holistic school renewal will require a qualitatively different discourse than the current uneasy conversations about school improvement and school effectiveness. Leadership for whole school renewal requires emotionally safe spaces for learning and growing together. Visions of school leadership as distributed, distributive and shared are grounded…

Administrators, particularly those who engage in instructional leadership, play a key role in school improvement. Past research describes the types of activities instructional leaders engage in but has paid little attention to how they do it. The authors use the case of one school to unpack instructional leadership as a practice, paying close…