Edu-Leadership

The principal as Chief Learning Officer and 'leader of leaders' is the wave of educational leadership for high-performing schools. It requires new thinking, new beliefs, and new practices, and places a diminishing value on hierarchical and bureaucratic practices as currently exists in many schools today. Creating an organization of many leaders, and many leadership possibilities opens the door to greater teacher involvement and increased student achievement. Under the guiding principles of Formative Leadership, developed by Dr. Ruth Ash and Dr. Maurice Persall, Edu-Leadership presents Formative Leadership Tip of the Month! We challenge you to inspire your teachers and students to greater success and higher performance!

Formative Leadership Tip of the Month

Become a leader of innovation. Leaders should move from demanding conformity and compliance to encouraging and supporting innovation and creativity. Innovative practices are encouraged by promoting risk taking, reducing the fear of failure, and developing and implementing participant-driven professional development programs, which are grounded in inquiry, reflection, and research. Aspire to become a learning organization, commit to continuous improvement through experimentation or action research, and dare to become the best!

What to do next?

Create a culture that prizes creativity and innovation
Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm
Celebrate new ideas and projects
Allow for mistakes during periods of new learning and innovation
Provide adequate time for implementation of new ideas
Develop methods to recognize and reward innovation

What to read?

Consider the following:

"Confucius Updated" by Joyce Wycoff

Vision, inspiration, and creativity Ivy Sea, Inc

Picking-up Weak Signals From Intuition to Conviction by Robert Salmon

Positive Turbulence : Developing Climates for Creativity, Innovation, and Renewal by Stanley S. Gryskiewicz

Creativity and the Mind : Discovering the Genius Within by Thomas B. Ward, Steven M. Smith, Ronald A. Finke

The New Work of Formative Leadership. , and Maurice Persall, Director of Graduate Programs. Orlean Bullard Beeson School of Education and Professional Studies, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama.