Today's educational leaders are often caught in a world of rising expectations and diminishing resources-the political pressures are enormous. Those in the business of education often feel ill prepared and apprehensive about their ability to deal with a high-stakes political environment. The Politically Intelligent Leader helps leaders at all levels learn more about themselves and their own political styles. It provides strategies for delivering a personal educational vision, diagnosing others' styles, and customizing strategies to influence those who can help or hinder one's organizational goals as well as providing groundwork for leaders to understand how to operate ethically with all groups-elected boards, citizen groups, unions and volunteers-during politically volatile times.

Are you lacking confidence in your decision-making abilities? Leaders often have to make challenging decisions, such as how do we improve employee morale? How do we decrease employee turnover? What needs to happen to ensure employees and stakeholders feel safe to return to work during a pandemic? Great leaders understand how to balance emotion with reason and to make decisions that positively impact their organizations. Making good decisions in difficult situations is no small feat. Change, uncertainty, stress, and anxiety all contribute to this dilemma. The Practical Decision Maker: A Handbook for Decision Making and Problem Solving, 2nd edition will help you achieve a high level of confidence and give you practical tools to make faster and more effective practical decisions. Decision-making has never been more critical, especially for today's leaders. Updates to this new edition include additions to reflect 21st century technology and the divisive times leaders are in today.

This book covers what twelve steps school leaders need to take to make for a high-achieving school environment. It encompasses strong leadership, vision and values, high expectations, embedded professional development, flexibility and resilience, and seven more steps. It concludes with a questionnaire, the High Expectations Environmental Scale (HEES), which you may apply to your organization to determine its level of high expectations.

This book covers what twelve steps school leaders need to take to make for a high-achieving school environment. It encompasses strong leadership, vision and values, high expectations, embedded professional development, flexibility and resilience, and seven more steps. It concludes with a questionnaire, the High Expectations Environmental Scale (HEES), which you may apply to your organization to determine its level of high expectations.

Resistance is at the heart of the change process, yet it is often overlooked or perceived as a negative force. This book explores resistance as a natural, positive, and necessary component of change. Twenty discrete resistance factors likely to be found in a variety of circumstances are described. The short vignettes that accompany each make the resistance factors come alive. Beyond gaining greater insights into the nature of these sources of resistance, the reader is provided with specific strategies, or antidotes, to harness the power of resistance, transforming it from a negative to a positive force. An included survey tool, built based on questions presented at the end of each chapter, will assist leaders in assessing potential sources of resistance to change events. An eight-step resistance-based change model transactional in nature and simple in application supports the reader in successfully moving nearly any change project toward a positive outcome.

Resistance is at the heart of the change process, yet it is often overlooked or perceived as a negative force. This book explores resistance as a natural, positive, and necessary component of change. Twenty discrete resistance factors_likely to be found in a variety of circumstances_are described. The short vignettes that accompany each make the resistance factors come alive. Beyond gaining greater insights into the nature of these sources of resistance, the reader is provided with specific strategies, or antidotes, to harness the power of resistance, transforming it from a negative to a positive force. An included survey tool, built based on questions presented at the end of each chapter, will assist leaders in assessing potential sources of resistance to change events. An eight-step resistance-based change model_transactional in nature and simple in application_supports the reader in successfully moving nearly any change project toward a positive outcome.

Today's educational leaders are often caught in a world of rising expectations and diminishing resources_the political pressures are enormous. Those in the business of education often feel ill prepared and apprehensive about their ability to deal with a high-stakes political environment. The Politically Intelligent Leader helps leaders at all levels learn more about themselves and their own political styles. It provides strategies for delivering a personal educational vision, diagnosing others' styles, and customizing strategies to influence those who can help or hinder one's organizational goals as well as providing groundwork for leaders to understand how to operate ethically with all groups_elected boards, citizen groups, unions and volunteers_during politically volatile times.

Today's educational leaders are often caught in a world of rising expectations and diminishing resources - the political pressures are enormous. Those in the business of education often feel ill prepared and apprehensive about their ability to deal with a high-stakes political environment. The Politically Intelligent Leader helps leaders at all levels learn more about themselves and their own political styles. It provides strategies for delivering a personal educational vision, diagnosing others' styles, and customizing strategies to influence those who can help or hinder one's organizational goals as well as providing groundwork for leaders to understand how to operate ethically with all groups - elected boards, citizen groups, unions and volunteers - during politically volatile times.

Here is an update of the previous edition, more relevant for the new millennium. The classic resources in management and team building are people, money, facilities and time. Increasingly, though, the fifth resource_energy_is becoming more crucial. Each chapter of this book deals with one of the five building blocks or resources and concludes with suggested activities and events that managers can use to build that resource. The authors also show the importance of using all five resources together for a manager to be effective. It is important to note that team building is not itself an activity, but the result of attending to the seventeen characteristics that demarcate effective teamwork. When these characteristics exist to a high degree, you have an effective team. It is the manager's job to assess the strength of these characteristics in the organization and then to remediate any weakness. Building upon the strengths of the people in the organization ensures that a manager is building for the future. This widely read practical guide is free of technical jargon, with many examples of successful implementation.

Now in Paper! Helpful examples from both the public and private sectors and from literature and history are presented in this outstanding volume for superintendents, central-office administrators, and corporate managers involved in the change process.