Bloomsbury Sustainable School Leadership: Portraits of Individuality

We live in a complex age, with multiple challenges at global, societal, organisational and personal levels, and where there is widespread evidence of individuals wishing to retire early from leadership positions in schools, and fewer individuals wishing to take up the role. Based upon extensive empirical research carried out for over a decade, Sustainable School Leadership's experienced team of cross-cultural researchers use a novel methodological approach to investigate the challenges to educational leaders on two continents. Types of challenges include: · personal (e.g. being new to the job, approaching retirement, coping with the role) · inter-personal (e.g. power relations, personal challenges with staff, parents and children) · local (e.g. issues being faced by the school in the community) · national (e.g. government initiatives, inspection) · global (e.g. managerialism, efficiency). This book contributes to the field of educational leadership in several ways. First, the authors bring scholarly research to life by providing a detailed description of the issues individual educational leaders face in different cultures in a globalised world. Using the innovative portrait methodology, they describe the demands of educational leadership in an accessible way. Second, the book demonstrates how the combined insights from individual portraits can provide important and meaningful critiques of organizational functioning. It informs current and future leadership research by better understanding how links between the micro-, meso- and macro-levels of education promote or discourage the sustainability of school leadership. Finally, the authors present important cross-cultural comparisons of eastern and western approaches to educational leadership. Sustaining School Leadership is relevant to students on educational leadership and management courses, academics and researchers and school leaders.