Virginia Jacko was a highly successful senior financial executive at Purdue University when she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa-in her case, she would go completely blind. The Blind Visionary tells Virginia's true, inspiring journey-from having to start over in life as a vocational rehabilitation student at the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired to becoming the Lighthouse's president and CEO just four years later. One of only a handful of blind chief executives in the country, Virginia became an outstanding chief executive, doubling the Lighthouse's revenues and dramatically diversifying its program offerings. The coauthors discuss in the closing chapter four practical lessons, drawn from Virginia's odyssey, that will help readers find the courage to take action, create positive change, and live fully in the face of whatever challenges might come their way. This amazing success story will inspire you to overcome obstacles on your way to building a more satisfying personal and professional life.

Doug Eadie's Governing at the Top: Building a Board-Superintendent Strategic Governing Team is both a powerful addition to the K-12 governance literature and a practical guidebook for school board members, superintendents, and senior administrators. Opening with a crystal-clear, eminently practical definition of the work of governing that goes well-beyond the outdated notion of "policy making," this exciting new book then takes a close look at the key elements involved in building the kind of rock-solid board-superintendent governing partnership that these changing, challenging times demand. After describing the critical role of a "board-savvy" superintendent in the governing partnership, Doug examines in detail how board-superintendent teams can go about developing the board's governing "architecture" (the board's governing role, its members, and its committee structure), mapping out processes for active board member engagement in governing work, and keeping the board-superintendent working relationship healthy. View the AASA-produced information video for Governing at the Top at the following Internet address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOob0Jp2ZuU. *Professors interested in examining this book as a textbook or supplemental text, contact [email protected] with your course information.

Doug Eadie's Governing at the Top: Building a Board-Superintendent Strategic Governing Team is both a powerful addition to the K-12 governance literature and a practical guidebook for school board members, superintendents, and senior administrators. Opening with a crystal-clear, eminently practical definition of the work of governing that goes well-beyond the outdated notion of "policy making," this exciting new book proceeds to take a close look at the key elements involved in building the kind of rock-solid board-superintendent governing partnership that today's challenging times demand. After describing the critical role of a "board-savvy" superintendent in the governing partnership, Doug examines in detail: *how board-superintendent teams can go about developing the board's governing "architecture" (the board's governing role, its members, and its committee structure). *how to map out processes for active board member engagement in governing work. *and how to keep the board-superintendent working relationship healthy. This book gives you the hands-on, practical advice on how to get the top job and how to "thrive and survive" when you're there, by the country's top specialist in the field of high-impact governing for superintendents and school boards.

Written from the unique perspective of school board members who lead and serve districts of all sizes, this book provides succinct, straightforward information that school board members and superintendents can put to immediate use. Eadie explores five key behavioral traits of high-impact school boards: . Concentration on governing above all other board work . Development of the board's capacity to govern . Active participation in leading district strategic change . Meticulous attention to keeping the board-superintendent partnership healthy . Active participation in reaching out a wider community Five Habits of High-Impact School Boards provides school board members, superintendents, senior administrators, foundation executives, and graduate students in schools of education, with practical, thoroughly tested guidance for successful governing work and a board-superintendent partnership that is close, productive, and enduring.

This book draws on author Doug Eadie's work with hundreds of boards to provide detailed, hands-on guidance for building and managing a board-superintendent partnership that is close, positive, productive, and enduring. Eadie describes how the superintendent can wear the "chief partnership officer" hat while leading and managing a board-superintendent partnership program. Special attention is paid to such critical partnership building tools such as: * Empowering the board * Building board member ownership of their governing work * Making governing work easier and more fun * Involving senior administrators in providing executive support to the board For superintendents, school board members, and school system senior administrators.

The Board-Savvy Superintendent's hard-hitting, no-nonsense, advice on school board leadership capitalizes on Houston and Eadie's hands-on experience working with hundreds of boards and superintendents over the past quarter-century. It is a practical, survive-and-thrive book that will help school district leaders-board members, superintendents, and senior administrators-learn to work together successfully in leading their districts in these extraordinarily challenging times. Filled with detailed, thoroughly tested guidance on how to acquire the skills and knowledge that make up board savvyness, it also addresses how to develop the school board's capacity to produce truly high-impact governance, and how to build a strong, enduring, productive board-superintendent working partnership. The authors take a fresh look at the process of governing, going well beyond the old-fashioned, control-focused "policy governance" approach. Rather than being preoccupied with developing a static structure of policies to distinguish the board's role from the superintendent's, the book describes how the board and superintendent can creatively work together in making decisions about such critical governing "products" as values, vision, mission, and strategic change initiatives. School district leaders will appreciate The Board-Savvy Superintendent's close look at the "gold standard" for board involvement in school affairs: leading strategic change. The authors go well beyond the conventional long-range planning approach of merely projecting everything a school district is doing for some arbitrary period of 3 or 5 years, which has generated tons of paper and little important change to provide the reader with detailed, practical guidance on engaging school boards creatively and proactively in a much more selective, vision-driven process that actually results in the implementation of strategic change: the Strategic Change Portfolio.

Building a High-Impact Board-Superintendent Partnership will consist of 11 brief chapters, each covering a critical question that practitioners need to answer in building the board-superintendent partnership

Building a High-Impact Board-Superintendent Partnership will consist of 11 brief chapters, each covering a critical question that practitioners need to answer in building the board-superintendent partnership

"The Board-Savvy CEO" is a "survive-and-thrive" handbook for nonprofit chief executive officers and executives aspiring to become CEOs. Governance expert and author Doug Eadie explains how leaders who build and maintain a close, productive partnership with their boards do a better job of translating vision into practice and achieving organizational stability, innovation, and growth. The author devotes a chapter to each of the three critical functions of a board-savvy CEO: chief board capacity builder; chief governing process designer; and chief governing relationship manager. Eadie explains, in Chapter Two, how the board-savvy CEO (as chief board capacity builder) helps the governing body define and develop its own governing mission; evaluate and implement effective standing committees that mirror the major streams of decision making; and design and adopt processes that enable the board to manage its own performance. He shows in the next chapter how CEOs who wish to be known as board savvy take the lead in designing processes that engage board members in such governing functions as planning, performance monitoring, and external relations so as to heighten their feelings of satisfaction and ownership - qualities that Eadie says make board members more positive and productive governing partners. Pointing out that the board-CEO working relationship is easily frayed, the author describes in Chapter Four how savvy CEOs help their boards assign a committee to monitor and manage the relationship; reach agreement on formal guidelines for CEO interaction and communication; and assure that a process for CEO performance evaluation is carried out annually. "The Board-Savvy CEO" is chock-full of richly detailed, real-world guidance on how to keep board members actively engaged in governing work that makes a real difference in their organization.
From the Foreword "If you are deeply concerned about the leadership of nonprofit and public organizations of all shapes and sizes, you will want to add 'The Board-Savvy CEO' to your reading--and rereading--list and keep it close at hand as a powerful leadership resource." Robert E. Eckardt Executive Vice President The Cleveland Foundation

In his path-breaking new book, "Leading Out-of-the-Box Change: The Chief Executive's Essential Guide to Achieving Nonprofit Innovation and Growth," leadership expert Doug Eadie draws from his quarter century of experience working with nonprofit and public leaders to provide a practical, thoroughly tested guide for leading the kind of out-of-the-box change that is critical to a nonprofit organization's long-range stability and growth. Doug describes the critical leadership role of the chief executive officer as Innovator-in-Chief and lays out the key elements of a powerful new change-planning tool that nonprofit leaders can apply to take command of out-of-the-box change: the Change Investment Portfolio Process. Doug also describes how to transform the organization's governing body into a strong advocate for - and committed owner of - out-of-the-box change initiatives. In the book's Postscript, the author also discusses the personal application of the Portfolio Process to build richer, more satisfying professional and personal lives. From the Foreword: "What makes Doug's book a particularly rich resource for non-profit and public leaders is its grounding in Doug's quarter century of hands-on work with an incredible range of organizations. Leading Out-of-the-Box Change is a real-life guidebook, for real-life leaders who are facing real-life challenges-not just another one of those collections of fascinating but untested theories." Christie A. Tarantino, CAE President & CEO Association Forum of Chicagoland

In Building a Rock-Solid Partnership With Your Board, author Doug Eadie draws on his work with hundreds of nonprofit and public organizations of every size and purpose to explain how board-savvy CEOs effectively manage the human dimension of the governing board-CEO relationship. Using real-world case studies, he outlines five keys to builidng a rock-solid partnership between the organization's CEO and its board of directors: 1.) bring the right mindset to the governing arena; 2.) make the board chair a close ally; 3.) turn board members into strong owners; 4.) make the board's work more interesting and enjoyable; and 5.) put in place a well-designed CEO evaluation process. CEOs who want their nonprofit organizations to thrive in difficult times will learn how to create an empowered board that collaborates effectively with the chief executive in such key areas as strategic and operational planning; performance monitoring; and external relataions. Readers will learn to harness the extensive knowledge, experience and outside connections that governing boards can bring to the organization's Strategic Governing Team, helping to assure the nonprofit's long-term success and job security for the board-savvy CEO.

Virginia Jacko was a highly successful senior financial executive at Purdue University when she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa-in her case, she would go completely blind. The Blind Visionary tells Virginia's true, inspiring journey-from having to start over in life as a vocational rehabilitation student at the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired to becoming the Lighthouse's president and CEO just four years later. One of only a handful of blind chief executives in the country, Virginia became an outstanding chief executive, doubling the Lighthouse's revenues and dramatically diversifying its program offerings. The coauthors discuss in the closing chapter four practical lessons, drawn from Virginia's odyssey, that will help readers find the courage to take action, create positive change, and live fully in the face of whatever challenges might come their way. This amazing success story will inspire you to overcome obstacles on your way to building a more satisfying personal and professional life.

In Meeting the Governing Challenge, author Doug Eadie offers nonprofit and public leaders answers to such critical governance questions as: How can I keep my board focused on the really high-stakes strategic and operational issues? How can we create a feeling of ownership and satisfaction among board members? What can we do to create a solid board-CEO partnership that will meet the test of time? In six concise chapters, Eadie offers an easy-to-apply blueprint for putting in place these key elements of his High-Impact Governing Model: A board-savvy CEO who takes the lead in building the board's leadership capacity A detailed board governing mission and carefully designed governing processes A well-designed structure of board standing committees that function as the organization's governing engines. A board self-management program and strong executive team support systems that help board members carry out their governing functions.