My First Book Review, and I Am in the Book!
Leadership and Teams, the Missing Piece of the Educational
Reform Puzzle
by
Lyle Kirtman
About a year ago, my Principal at my last school said she
was extremely busy, and she asked if I wanted to do a book review for a
publishing company instead of her since she could not find the time to manage
it. I jumped on the opportunity, because my 3rd greatest strength is
Learner, AND I would be getting paid. I used to be a peer editor for the
professional journal, The Reading Teacher, and I never got paid for
that. So, I set off on working to review
the manuscript. After I reviewed that first manuscript, the publishing company asked me to do more.
It is one of those books that I reviewed as a manuscript that I want to recommend to you today. It was an exceptional book on leadership and the importance of building teams to
help leaders be successful. One of the great attributes of the book was the
number of leadership profiles that it analyzed. It gave me, a new leader,
examples and non-examples of what leaders need to achieve success.
This month, I just got notice from Pearson that the book has
finally been published. Well, I decided to do a book review, which I have seen
many BLOGers do. It’s just this time, I really have a vested interest in the
book since my name is listed in the credits as a reviewer of the book.
Cool Things about This Book:
The book analyzes 7 Key Competencies Leaders Need to
Succeed
High Performing Leaders
1.
Challenge
the status quo.
2.
Build trust through clear communications and
expectations.
3.
Create a commonly owned plan for success.
4.
Focuses on team over self.
5.
Have a high sense of urgency for change and
sustainable results in improving student achievement.
6.
Commitment to continuous improvement for self.
(They are looking to learn from colleagues and any resource whether in
education or other sectors. They are never satisfied with their own leadership
ability. They know they can always learn and improve.) The high performing
leader is open to criticism and looks for honest feedback on how they can
improve.
7.
Builds external networks/partnerships.
It should also be noted the book emphasizes that a leader
can generally only focus on sustainable change and improvement for a maximum of
7 competencies.
The book also coaches leaders how to assess their leadership
style. It mentions numerous profile analysis tools and leadership assessments:
StrengthFinder (which I LOVE) and have mentioned in a couple
of my entries here.
Other inventories described are:
DISC ( Dominance Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness)
Profile
MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Inventory)
Values Inventory
WPI (Workplace Personality Inventory)
To note the importance of such inventories, the book explains
that it is…”interesting that education which is so data based with students
pays minimal attention to its leaders and employees on data that is seen as
critical in other fields. Perhaps it is because the Human Resource field is
somewhat underdeveloped in education.”
Here are the GREAT quotes that I keyed in on during the reading
of the book. Perhaps they will interest you in reading it:
*The leader’s role is to insure that the highest quality of
service is provided to the customer.
*Good leaders are clear in their expectations and do not
tolerate people who sabotage results.
*A strong leader will not tolerate one child getting a poor
education and preventing them from succeeding.
*Positive energy is infectious and builds a spirit of
success which is unmatched.
Successful leaders move quickly.
*We are all different and our value systems are unique. Any
plan for improvement has to work well with your values well or
it will not be sustainable.
*People get hired for what they know but get fired for who
they are.
Self-awareness is critical for improvement.
*Building an environment of trust is critical, and trust
takes time. The basis of the trust cycle is that people trust someone they find
predictable. Always check for shared understanding. Making sure that what a
leader has communicated is understood by the receiver is critical to building
trust.
*Leaders who have lower performing leadership profiles can be
successful if they develop high performance teams to fill the gaps in their
style.
*Be careful to prevent conflicts from growing. Don’t minimize
them.
*When dealing with politics, be careful but don’t be
paranoid. People will mislead others to help their agenda.
AND, most important to me, and why I enjoyed reading this
book:
The bottom line: Knowing how to create and implement change
is what the work of improving education for kids is all about.
This is a great book, and I highly recommend it.
