Theories of Educational Leadership and Management

by Tony Bush

In this established text Tony Bush presents the major theories of educational management in relation to contemporary policy and practice, making clear the links between educational management theories and the main models of leadership. The author applies the models to a range of international contexts, including both developed and developing countries. New case study material has been added to this edition from the full range of education and non-school settings, from early years through to further and higher education.

Genres: Education, Leadership

209 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.