Leadership si management educational: teorii si practici actuale

by Tony Bush, Liliana Romaniuc (coord. trad.), Irina Prodan (translator)

In acest volum devenit clasic, Tony Bush schiteaza cadrul conceptual de orientare a activitatii decidentilor din educatie si analizeaza sase modele de management pe care le pune in relatie cu zece modele de leadership. Notiunile teoretice sint ilustrate cu numeroase studii de caz din toate mediile educationale, de la scoala primara la universitate, intr-o varietate de contexte internationale. Printre tematicile specifice abordate se numara centralizarea si descentralizarea in educatie, scolile in sistem de management autonom, relatia dintre teorie si practica sau natura si caracteristicile managementului educational. Conceptele-cheie, rezumatele si subiectele de dezbatere incluse in fiecare capitol faciliteaza utilizarea lucrarii si ca suport de curs. Leadership si management educational este un excelent instrument de lucru pentru cei care detin functii decizionale in cadrul unitatilor de invatamint si in sistemul educational in general.

Genres: Education, Leadership

248 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[William Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are in a position of leadership in education, non-profit, or even business, this book is a must read. In fact, you are doing a lot of people a great disservice to not read this. There is no reason why education systems and nonprofit organizations cannot use a collegial and participative model of management, but there are elements of other models that can be useful too. Tony Bush lays out the pros and cons of all of the leadership models. Bush captures an understanding of basic psychology when he explains research on democratic leadership:

"Teachers and leaders are more likely to be enthusiastic about change when they 'own' it rather than having it imposed on them. Hargreaves (2004).... finds that teachers report largely positive emotional experiences of self-initiated change but predominantly negative ones concerning mandated change" (p. 7).

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this (4th edition) text to get an overview of current perspectives on leadership and management. In that sense the book is extremely comprehensive; it draws on four decades of key research to summarise differences and similarities between the different models.

Each perspective that Bush addresses - each one given its own chapter - is given a set of definitions, key characteristics, and some analytical scrutiny. Bush's conclusions draw them all together using some practical parallels to real life organizations.

I'm finding straight away that I'm able to use the book as a kind of theoretical lens when reading other books and articles about leadership. I've also accessed one or two of the well-selected sources cited by Bush, to further develop my understanding of distributed & strategic leadership. The tabular representation that Bush provides (p.199) of the categorisations of leadership and management has the potential for providing an analytical framework for future studies.

If so useful, why not five stars? The book may have benefited from either deeper scrutiny of each model, or stronger links to a greater range of practical situations (to appeal to leaders looking for tips & advice), or more on practical analysis of the models, and implications for the future given current educational policy & practices.

However, all-in-all a highly recommendable book, which I'll be keeping close to hand for the next few months.

DJA

[Colin]

Lack of dialogue made this one a slog.