James H. Lytle – författare

This groundbreaking volume encourages today’s educational leaders to reposition the way they think about leadership and its challenges. Experienced school and district leaders reveal how they conceptualize their roles; how they learn by posing and solving problems of practice; and how they cope with increasing expectations and complexity in their work. This compilation of compelling narratives demonstrates the power and efficacy of what can happen when school, district, and other educational leaders position themselves as inquirers, bringing forth broader social justice and equity implications. Readers see how leadership can illuminate and improve many aspects of institutional life and create intellectually demanding and rich learning environments for both adults and children. At its heart, Repositioning Educational Leadership is an invitation to practitioners and scholars to make space for new critical questions and perspectives. This book nurtures an expanded discourse about leadership, generated by leaders themselves, and arising from some of the most vexing and often invisible aspects of their important work.

Much of the current discourse on improving school leadership, and particularly the performance of principals, is misguided. There is much too much emphasis on evaluation and standards as determined by policy makers and professors and not nearly enough attention to how one provides performance-driven leadership in the context of day-to-day practice. As an administrator, academic, consultant and researcher, Lytle has traveled widely in the school leadership province. This book draws on his career as a school administrator and his experience teaching leadership at the graduate level. The author uses personal stories to address such questions as: How does one learn to lead? How does one become a leader? How does one teach others to lead? What does it mean to lead for learning?