Leadership for Change

We have come a long way since the days of valuing leaders who ‘run a tight ship’. We have gone through the phases of the principal ‘as administrator’ and the principal ‘as instructional leader’ to a broader and more fundamental notion of principal as change agent. In this chapter I take a critical approach to understanding the nature of the evolving role of school leadership, why it has changed, and what we need to know and to be able to do to make the leadership role more doable. While the focus is on ‘school’ leadership (principal and teacher leadership), much of the analysis applies to ‘system’ leadership involving superintendents and other central office staff.