Content area
Full text
The Moral Imperative of School Leadership
Michael Fullan
Corwin Press
California, 2003
Review DOI 10.1108/09578230510586614
Fullan's latest book, The Moral Imperative of School Leadership (Corwin Press, California, 2003) will appeal to principals and system administrators alike.
Reflecting on his current work with districts in North America, Fullan argues that to achieve "large scale, sustainable reform and improvement" (p. xiv) to schools there is a need to look at the principalship (which he sees as the critical agent for reform) from a system level.
The concise 80-page work, typical of Fullan's recent publications, sets the context for his argument in the first chapter, with an examination of the changing context for public educators and schools, and, particularly with a strong defence of the importance of the public education system.
In short, a high quality public education system is essential, not only for parents who send their children to these schools but also for the public good as a whole (p. 4).
It is in this section of the book that Fullan introduces his most significant theme, however, by providing a strong challenge to principals who hold the view that by improving their schools individually, the public system will be nurtured and developed. Fullan argues that
Improving the overall system will not happen just by endorsing the vision of a strong public education system; principals in particular must be cognizant that changing their schools and the system is a simultaneous proposition.
The first chapter concludes with an endorsement of Jim Collins' (2001) "Level 5 Leadership" - those characteristics which Collins argues turn a good company into a great one. Collins' characteristics include getting the right people; maintaining faith in the context of recognising reality; and the "hedgehog concept" - deciding what you are passionate about, what you can be best at, in the context of what makes financial sense - all this is in the frame of disciplined thought and carefully selected technology.
The second chapter briefly analyses barriers to effective principalship, examining data from a study of 137 principals and vice principals in the Toronto Board of Education in the 1980s. Most interesting and most relevant to readers in 2004 is a barrier which Fullan calls "loss of one's moral compass" where he elaborates briefly the...