Time for Change : Four Essential Skills for Transformational School and District Leaders (Educational Leadership Development for Change Management)

• Four essential skills for leading real change. Identifies the four distinctive skills transformational leaders need: strong communication, the ability to build trust, the ability to grow the skills of those they lead, and a results orientation, and shows school and district leaders how to build all four.
• Answers the three questions transformational leaders must ask. Walks leaders through the why, who, and how of leading change, helping them inspire a shared vision, build the right coalition, and translate that vision into a concrete plan for their school or district.
• From the author of Transforming School Culture. Written by Transforming School Culture author Anthony Muhammad and coauthored by Luis F. Cruz, this guide extends Muhammad's research on staff resistance to change into practical tools for building and sustaining transformational leadership skills.
• Built for real change management, not just theory. Provides concrete tools and strategies leaders can use immediately to overcome resistance to change and lead their school or district toward lasting, meaningful, strategic change.
• From Solution Tree, for leaders ready to move from vision to action. Complements Transforming School Culture and other Solution Tree leadership resources for principals, superintendents, and district leaders driving meaningful 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.