What makes an academic leader effective? How can the myths surrounding academic leadership induce college presidents to make poor judgments? Can a college president really make a difference in whether an institution is successful in achieving its goals? In this book, Robert Birnbaum reveals the complex factors that influence the real and perceived effectiveness of academic leaders. Drawing on the results of a five-year longitudinal study by the Institutional Leadership Project, he explains how college and university leaders in various types of institutions interact and communicate, assess their own and others' effectiveness, establish goals, transmit values, and make sense of the ambiguous and dynamic organizations in which they work. And Birnbaum tells how presidents can maintain critical constituent support, increase their effectiveness, and ultimately help renew their college's values and spirit.

Sharpen your instructional leadership skills and guide your school toward equity and excellence for all. Just think about how great schools could be if every instructional leader exercised their influence to create change—maximizing the efforts of others and mobilizing those efforts to work toward a shared goal. How Leadership Works: A Playbook for Instructional Leaders walks educators through the processes of clarifying, articulating, and actualizing instructional leadership goals with the aim of delivering on the promise of equity and excellence for all. Grounded in Visible Learning® research, the exercises in this easy-to-use playbook illuminate the essential mindframes necessary for effective instructional leadership and prompt veteran, new, and aspiring educators to identify challenges and determine next steps. It includes: Ten essential mindframes for leaders, together with the leadership practices that illustrate each mindframe in action Teaching practices, such as teacher clarity or student engagement in learning, that support teachers in delivering quality instruction, along with tools to document the impact of those practices on learning Strategies for leading learning, including establishing school culture, utilizing feedback, and supporting professional learning communities as a pathway to building collective teacher efficacy. Tools for applying the principles of change, conducting an initiative inventory, and implementing and de-implementing initiatives Exercise-by-exercise, educators and front office staff will deepen their knowledge, frame their priorities and practices, and gain new tools for supporting the instructional focus and initiatives designed to support learning at your school.

Bridge the great divide between distanced administrative duties and daily classroom impact. This book introduces a top-down power mechanism called defined autonomy, a concept that focuses on district-defined, nonnegotiable, common goals and a system of accountability supported by assessment tools. Defined autonomy creates an effective balance of centralized direction and individualized empowerment that allows building-level staff the stylistic freedom to respond quickly and effectively to student failure.

Practical and accessible with workbook activities and exercises for readers to do, this book shares the eight essential elements of teamwork, using Benincasa's exciting, challenging, and life-affirming experiences as an extreme world class adventure racer.

This is a book destined for leaders who wish to implement change more intelligently and effortlessly. Drawing on a combination of rigorous research and extensive organizational experience, the authors present a framework for leading change, ?Changing Leadership?, that describes the specific leader practices they have found make the biggest difference between success and failure in implementing high magnitude change. In doing all of this, the leader works to make change happen in the day to day activity and conversations of the organization.

Sharpen your instructional leadership skills and guide your school toward equity and excellence for all. Just think about how great schools could be if every instructional leader exercised their influence to create change--maximizing the efforts of others and mobilizing those efforts to work toward a shared goal. How Leadership Works: A Playbook for Instructional Leaders walks educators through the processes of clarifying, articulating, and actualizing instructional leadership goals with the aim of delivering on the promise of equity and excellence for all. Grounded in Visible Learning® research, the exercises in this easy-to-use playbook illuminate the essential mindframes necessary for effective instructional leadership and prompt veteran, new, and aspiring educators to identify challenges and determine next steps. It includes: Ten essential mindframes for leaders, together with the leadership practices that illustrate each mindframe in action Teaching practices, such as teacher clarity or student engagement in learning, that support teachers in delivering quality instruction, along with tools to document the impact of those practices on learning Strategies for leading learning, including establishing school culture, utilizing feedback, and supporting professional learning communities as a pathway to building collective teacher efficacy. Tools for applying the principles of change, conducting an initiative inventory, and implementing and de-implementing initiatives Exercise-by-exercise, educators and front office staff will deepen their knowledge, frame their priorities and practices, and gain new tools for supporting the instructional focus and initiatives designed to support learning at your school.

One of Christianity Today's Top 10 Books of the Year! Leith Anderson's preaching vision, and leadership have guided his church through a process of change and growth process of change and growth, putting it on the cutting edge to meet the spiritual needs of its people. His counsel is sound, practical, and full of hope to pastors, church leaders, and lay Christians. Christianity Today selected this book as its top pick in the Church/Pastoral Leadership category for 2000.