High-Leverage Leadership: Improving Outcomes in Educational Settings

Educational outcomes and well-being for young people across emerging and developed economies have never been more important and so, therefore, is the role of education and leaders of education. Globalisation of world trade, international media, technological innovation and social change are creating opportunities and challenges which today'¬"s pupils will inherit and build on. Their academic, technical and social capacity will define their success or failure. At the core of responses to these challenges and at the heart of concern for children has been a changing role for schools and new requirements on their leaders. Schools are being asked to think more clearly about their place in children'¬"s lives beyond the passage of learning in classrooms. Schools, we know with increasing clarity, are not neutral repositories of knowledge, from which pupils can draw a daily deposit of information and a daily dose of skills development. The processes inside schools, the organisation of school systems and the relationship between communities and the educators they employ are critical elements in a complex mixture. This means that local leaders of education - school leaders in developed economies, educational innovators and entrepreneurs in others '¬ ; need to combine a deeply held view about the purpose of their activity with both a managerial commitment to make it effective and an inclination to work in partnership with children, families, communities and other services. The authors of this book report that successful educational leaders apply contextual, social and professional expertise or '¬Üintelligence'¬" to the three distinctive leadership tasks of navigation (securing the vision), management and partnership. By describing the three characteristics which successful leaders employ and exploring the tensions between the three activities they need to pursue, the authors offer leaders a clear framework in which to reflect on and develop their own approaches. They argue that a "sense of community" underpins this framework and that high leverage leaders believe "everyone has a gift to offer and can make a contribution". In summary, this approach to leadership is more than school or educational leadership; it is a way of making sense of the real world.