Transformational leaders have four distinctive skills: strong communication, the ability to build trust, the ability to increase the skills of those they lead, and a results orientation. Time for Change offers powerful guidance for those seeking to develop and strengthen the educational leadership skills needed for change management and overcoming resistance to change. Throughout this authoritative guide, Anthony Muhammad and Luis F. Cruz share concrete tools and strategies that will prepare you to lead your school toward lasting, meaningful, and strategic change.
Use this educational leadership book to inspire a shared vision and help in overcoming resistance to change:
- Develop an understanding of educational leadership and change management as skills that can be practiced and improved.
- Consider three questions of transformational leadership (Why? Who? How?) and then Do!
- Learn about the technical and cultural dimensions of change and the ways in which both must be addressed.
- Understand the reasons behind resistance to change and how to manage it through effective leadership.
- Synthesize your skills as a school leader and utilize them to effect strategic change.
Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Finding Balance for Systems Change
Chapter 2: Communicating the Rationale -- Building Cognitive Investment
Chapter 3: Establishing Trust -- Making an Emotional Investment
Chapter 4: Building Capacity -- Making a Functional Investment
Chapter 5: Getting Results -- Collecting the Return on Investment
Chapter 6: Tying It All Together
Afterword: Final Thoughts
References and Resources
Anthony Muhammad, PhD, is a much sought-after educational consultant. A practitioner for nearly twenty years, he has served as a middle school teacher, assistant principal, and principal and as a high school principal. His Transforming School Culture framework explores the root causes of staff resistance to change.
Dr. Muhammad's tenure as a practitioner has earned him several awards as both a teacher and a principal. His most notable accomplishment came as principal of Levey Middle School in Southfield, Michigan, a National School of Excellence, where student proficiency on state assessments more than doubled in five years. Dr. Muhammad and the staff at Levey used the Professional Learning Communities at Work® process for school improvement, and they have been recognized in several videos and articles as a model high-performing PLC.
As a researcher, Dr. Muhammad has published articles in several publications in both the United States and Canada. He is author of Transforming School Culture: How to Overcome Staff Division; The Will to Lead, the Skill to Teach: Transforming Schools at Every Level; and Overcoming the Achievement Gap Trap: Liberating Mindsets to Effect Change and a contributor to The Collaborative Administrator.
To learn more about Dr. Muhammad's work, visit New Frontier 21 (newfrontier21.com), or follow @newfrontier21 on Twitter.
Luis F. Cruz, PhD, is former principal of Baldwin Park High School, located east of Los Angeles, California. He has been a teacher and administrator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Dr. Cruz presents on methods from the best-selling book Transforming School Culture by Anthony Muhammad.
In 2007, Dr. Cruz led a collective effort to secure a $250,000 grant for Baldwin Park from the California Academic Partnership Program for the purpose of effectively utilizing "courageous leadership" to promote a more equitable and effective organization.
Since becoming a public school educator, Dr. Cruz has won the New Teacher of the Year, Teacher of the Year, Administrator of the Year, and other community leadership awards. He and a committee of teacher leaders at Baldwin Park received California's prestigious Golden Bell Award from the California School Boards Association for significantly closing the achievement gap between the general student population and students learning English as a second language.
As a recipient of the Hispanic Border Leadership Institute's fellowship for doctoral studies, he earned a doctorate in institutional leadership and policy studies from the University of California Riverside. He earned an associate's degree from Mount San Antonio Community College, a bachelor's degree from California State University, Fullerton, and a master's degree from Claremont Graduate University.
To book Anthony Muhammad or Luis F. Cruz for professional development, contact pd@SolutionTree.com.
