Accelerated Leadership Development : Fast-Tracking School Leaders

There is a growing need to accelerate leadership development in schools in England because a large number of senior staff in schools are due to retire or otherwise leave the profession prematurely. Already there are problems in identifying suitably experienced candidates to appoint to such posts. An added complexity is the negative perception that some middle and senior leaders have about headship. In the English system, it takes approximately 20 years to become a headteacher, and this is regarded by some aspirants to the role as a hindrance to their career progression. There is, therefore, a need to find ways of making the job more attractive and speeding up the development of potential leaders so that they will have the necessary motivation, skills and confidence to take on senior leadership posts. The authors have investigated leadership development practices in education, as well as in private and public sector organizations in the UK and elsewhere. Some organizations have long and successful experience of running schemes for accelerating the leadership development of their staff. This book captures and communicates the lessons learned from this work to help schools address the talent management issues they currently face. Accelerating leadership is not simply a matter of acquiring factual knowledge about how to lead in a school setting. Personal learning from experience is an essential element in acquiring practical skills such as leadership. For most professions, it takes considerable time to learn from a variety of experiences to become a fully competent professional. This book is concerned with how to speed up the process of developing leaders in schools by planning and assisting their learning from experience and from formal learning opportunities.