Forces of Influence: How Educators Can Leverage Relationships to Improve Practice

In Forces of Influence, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette contend that schoolwide success starts with relationships—not only between students and adults, but also among all adults up and down the education hierarchy. It's by leveraging these relationships that educators can influence outcomes and effect real change.

But how can educators make sure they exert their influence astutely and sensitively, navigating education's priorities and pressures while keeping their work focused on the mission? This thought-provoking book helps readers navigate this tricky terrain, introducing four "forces," or levels, of influence and explaining how educators can use them to support one another's practice and push for positive outcomes for all learners. The authors

* Explore each of the four forces—the pull, the push, the shove, and the nudge—and explain why they work and what research shows about their effectiveness.
* Introduce the Forces of Influence Leadership Matrix (FILM), a framework that identifies how the four forces connect and helps readers determine when to use which force, with whom, and how.
* Provide advice on how to course-correct by switching and layering the forces for positive results—and how to recover from setbacks.
* Offer copious tools to support this work, including role-plays, self-assessments, templates, and questions to spur reflection and action taking.

Everything educators do requires them to build, sustain, and leverage relationships. With this guide, they no longer have to wing it.

Fred Ende is the director of Curriculum and Instructional Services for the Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). He previously served in this same organization as the regional science coordinator and director of SCIENCE 21. Before that, he worked for 10 years as a middle school science teacher and department chair in Chappaqua, New York. He is one of ASCD's emerging leaders and currently is a board member in ASCD's Emerging Leader Affiliate. He has written and reviewed manuscripts for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and ASCD and has been both a national and regional presenter for both associations. He is an avid writer who blogs monthly for SmartBrief and has also written for Edutopia and his own website.

Meghan Everette is a mathematics coach in the Salt Lake City School District, and the executive director of the ASCD Emerging Leader Alumni Affiliate. She was the 2013 Alabama Elementary Teacher of the Year and a 2015–17 Hope Street Group National Teacher Fellow. Meghan codesigned Powered By Teach to Lead Utah; spent six years as a blogger for the Scholastic Top Teaching blog; and taught at George Hall Elementary, a national turnaround model school in Mobile, Alabama. She is currently a board member of both the Utah Council of Teachers of Mathematics (UCTM) and Utah ASCD. She is a Digital Promise Micro-Credential Ambassador and serves on the Council of Chief State School Officers' Teacher Recruitment and Retention Educator Steering Committee. Meghan is currently pursuing her doctorate in Teachers, Schools, and Society at the University of Florida.