Michael Fullan - The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact

This revealing and powerful book comes just in time, as we launch the biggest education reform in the past fifty years. It should be required reading not only for principals, but perhaps even more importantly for those who support and lead them.

Laura Schwalm, CaEdPartners; former superintendent, Garden Grove, California

After decades of studying, working with, and enhancing the lot of principals... Fullans conclusion? Principals are needed now more than ever, and hes smack on target. He doesnt mince words, yet instills hope and confidence. Simply great... this book should be on every leaders desk. Another bullseye!

Willam Parrett, director, Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies, Boise State University, Idaho

Michael Fullan

Cover image: Walter B. McKenzie, Getty (RF)

Cover design: John Hamilton Design

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

ISBN 978-1-118-57523-9 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-118-58245-9 (ebk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-58254-1 (ebk.)

Leading in a Culture of Change

The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help

Their Organizations Survive and Thrive

Change Leader: Learning to Do What Matters Most

Turnaround Leadership

Turnaround Leadership for Higher Education (with Geoff Scott)

Leading in a Culture of Change Personal Action Guide and Workbook

In 1988, I dealt myself some serious marching orders in a monograph titled Whats Worth Fighting for in the Principalship? And the long march goes on. In several recent books that Ill cite later in this text, Ive continued that work by trying to define the new kind of change leadership that principals need to embody, especially now as formalized standards of achievement and ever-evolving technology increasingly influence how schools are to be run. What I havent done until now is to explore and discuss in detail how (and why so urgently) the principals role now needs to change.

So in this book we come to grips with the oft-cited idea that the principal is the second most important factor (next to the teacher) in influencing student learning. It turns out that the impact of the principal lies neither in micromanaging instruction nor in autonomous entrepreneurialism. Even the new roles for principals as direct instructional leaders that are emerging this decade will and should become rapidly outmoded.

This book is somewhat U.S.-centric partly because the key issues are so clearly in contrast in that country, and partly because the United States is big and complex and so consequential if the improvement of schooling is not addressed effectively. But the issues I take up are relevant to any country in the world. In any case, in the chapters that follow, I will show how the principals role in any public school system should change, and provide enough evidence to indicate that it can be done, and on a very wide scale in short order. The messages and the direction are clear, and are aimed at incumbent and aspirant principals and all those who work to make schools more powerful learning systems.

The bottom line is that life could change markedly for the better for the principal. I will show what the new role of the principal can be, why it is exciting, and how principals can maximize the impact they have on students and teachers. If you are a school leader, this is why you came into the profession and assumed a leadership role. If you are a district or system leader, this is what you dream ofscores and scores of principals doing great things for the system as a whole. There is no time to waste!

To download discussion questions and a Professional Development Training Kit, visit www.wiley.com/go/theprincipal . The password is the last five digits of this books ISBN, which are 27239.

I RECEIVED FEEDBACK FROM SEVERAL PEOPLE WHO KNOW the principalship deeply, representing collectively a couple of hundred years of experience being inside and close to the role. Although any shortcomings that remain are mine, I deeply thank them for all their insights: James Bond, Lucy Calkins, Rick DuFour, John Hattie, Lyle Kirtman, Ken Leithwood, Kathy Reidlinger, and Alice Thomas. I am especially indebted to my core team of Claudia Cuttress, Eleanor Adam, and Joanne Quinn, and to the recent expanded team of Maria Langworthy and Santiago Rincon-Gallardo, who produce so much and of such high quality. And to Andy Hargreaves, always a great team player.