Leadership & Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action / Edition 1

by Michael Fullan

Overview

Fullan provides a comprehensive examination of what leaders at all levels of the educational system can do to promote large-scale, sustainable reform.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412904964
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	07/22/2004
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Fullan served as Premier Dalton Mc Guinty’s Special Policy Adviser in Ontario from 2003-2013. He received the Order of Canada (OC) in December 2012 and holds five honorary doctorates from universities around the world. His ‘interim autobiography’, Surreal Change, covers his work to 2018. Michael and his colleagues are now working diligently on field-based comprehensive system change in several countries. This work operates under the umbrella of what they call the ‘shared humanity paradigm’ —Equity, Engagement, Excellence—Deep change that integrates local (school and community), middle (district/regional), and state (policy) entities.

Fullan’s favorite method of learning is to partner with groups that are engaged with change; and to learn together with them. (And then to write another book about the experiences, and what was learned).

Michael Fullan’s latest books are: Nuance (2019), Spirit Work and the Science of Collaboration (with Mark Edwards, 2022), The Principal 2.0 (2023), and The Drivers (with Joanne Quinn, 2023).

For more information on books, articles, videos, podcasts please go to: www.michaelfullan.ca

Table of Contents

Preface
Dedication
About the Author
1. The Starting Point
2. The Intriguing Nature of Sustainability
3. Leadership to the Fore
4. The New Work of Leaders
5. Leadership at the School Level
6. Leadership at the District Level
7. Leadership at the System Level
Epilogue
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Michael Fullan has gone beyond his past research that described the change process so insightfully to a new and exciting exploration of how systems thinking and the 'long lever of leadership' can bring about deep and lasting reforms in schools and schooling. This brand of leadership for sustainability, as described by Fullan, results in the 'deep learning' that enables schools to respond successfully to the revolution in expectations they now face. This new work will both inform and inspire educators to become the 'new theoreticians' whose impact will be felt in their schools every day. "

David T. Conley

"A discourse on and an inquiry into how sustainability comes to be. This book sensibly and unapologetically champions humane values that were once more commonly espoused in an era before metrics gone mad and big government in education. "

Teachers College Record

"In Leadership & Sustainability Michael Fullan continues to push the edge of what we understand about improving schools on a large scale. His ideas, both provocative and practical, are well worth the attention of educational reformers, policy makers, and practitioners alike. "

Kenneth A. Leithwood

"Efforts at education reform have taken us down a variety of paths, and Michael Fullan has consistently noted the importance of leadership to large-scale reform. In his latest book, Leadership & Sustainability, Fullan makes a solid case that such reform is a complex process involving many variables. Key among these variables is the relationship between leadership and sustainability. "

Vincent L. Ferrandino

"Offers practical advice to school administrators, districts, and systems to prevent the sort of backsliding that jeopardizes long-term results. "

Principal

"Offers practical advice to school administrators, districts, and systems to prevent the sort of backsliding that jeopardizes long-term results."

March/April 2006 Principal

"Fullan displays his usual and unique capacity to explain the complexity for improving schools and school systems. He provides vivid examples which illuminate the pathways for headteachers, policy makers and academics wishing to combine immediate results with long term and greater benefits. Fullan's books—and this is no exception—are for educational policy makers, practitioners and researchers what J K Rowling's Harry Potter books are for children and parents. This is one of the best and most useful."

Tim Brighouse

"Michael Fullan does it again—providing yet another significant resolve to educational leadership. In an era marked by changing demographics, increased accountability, and a wave of anticipated retirements, Fullan offers a vision and a roadmap for designing and implementing strategies that can result in systemic reform in our nation’s schools."

Gerald N. Tirozzi

"No one has contributed more to our understanding of leadership and change than Michael Fullan. Leadership & Sustainability continues that tradition—a brilliant analysis of a timely topic."

Thomas J. Sergiovanni

"While everyone is debating quick-fix reform in education, Michael Fullan sets out a compelling strategy for widespread and lasting improvement. Drawing on experience from around the world and examples at every level, Fullan brilliantly personifies the transformative theorist-in-action that he urges others to be. This book is essential. Don’t leave school without it!"

Andy Hargreaves

"Michael Fullan has been among the most salient international observers of educational change over the past decade. In this book he draws upon a diverse knowledge base in a critical examination of the limitations of current education reform strategies in use around the world. He then answers his own challenge by seeking to identify what it will take to create sustainable educational reform. His approach will be of interest to a broad range of educational leaders, policymakers, and scholars."

Philip Hallinger

"With knowledgeable savvy from both individual leadership and system transformation, and a knack for writing in 'plain-speak,' Fullan helps us understand that it will be 'leadership' (not leaders) that pave the way for great sustainability. His attempt to link abstract concepts to concrete examples of what it looks like in practice was successful."

Theodore B. Creighton

"Leadership & Sustainability is a critical breakthrough. Michael Fullan has utilized findings from some of the best research and observations in education over the past fifteen years to brilliantly illuminate the challenges of creating schools capable of continuous organic change and improvement."

James P. Comer

"An ambitious and provocative journey into the complexities and possibilities that arise when leadership and sustainability join."

Roland S. Barth

"Leadership & Sustainability extends and amplifies Fullan's thinking in very powerful and practical ways, by developing a topic that hasn’t seen this kind of elegant, integrative, and comprehensive treatment before. It uses real-world examples and research literature to tackle, head on, the question of sustainability—how organizations move into the future and endure over time, as well as the equally challenging question: what about an organization is worth sustaining long term? Folks who have followed Michael Fullan's work over many years will like this book very much."

Richard Ackerman