Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Small amount of underlining. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> In politics ‘it is much safer to be feared than loved’ wrote Machi-avelli in The Prince in 1515. This is a premise that has been rein-forced in much of the subsequent writing about leadership andleadership development. Command and control approaches toleadership can be found today quite explicitly in the discoursesaround failing schools where a ‘strong’ head is often required to takecharge and turn the school around. The only problem is that whilecontrol and fear often bring quick results the long term prognosis isless favourable. Schools in difficulty soon return to normative prac-tice when the ‘strong head’ leaves or when there is little left in theleadership repertoire to take the school to a different stage in itsdevelopment. So while the rational strategic and instrumentalmodels of leadership remain compellingly attractive they can onlytake us so far. The challenges of school improvement in the fastpaced world of today cannot be resolved with sixteenth centuryapproaches to leadership or models of leadership that simply do notreflect the contemporary educational landscape.This book by Belinda Harris offers us an alternative way of under-standing leadership and leadership practice. Its central message isthat leadership is fundamentally about emotional engagement andinvolvement. It argues that leaders need to be more attuned to theiremotions and that leadership is fundamentally about the quality ofrelationships with oneself and others. It points to the need forleaders to be more actively cognisant of their own emotional histo-ries as these both shape and affect their actions and reactions. Thereis also a painful exploration of the damaging effects of leadershipwhen it is misused misjudged or misunderstood.