This document discusses qualities of good leadership in education. It provides insights from the author's experience and research findings on effective school leadership. Good leaders are visionary and approachable, create an atmosphere of curiosity, involve staff in decision making, and actively challenge the status quo. They foster shared values, advocate for the school, use data to monitor performance, and provide teachers with resources and training. While maintaining standard procedures, they also are flexible, inspiring, and recognize accomplishments. The document emphasizes that leadership requires taking risks but also admitting failures, and that leaders must continually learn, including from new strategies and technologies.

1. Leadership in
Education
Leadership demands two kinds of courage:
 the strength to take a risk, and
 the humility to admit when a risk fails
Presented by Paul Herring

2. What is good leadership?
Here are my first thoughts/observations from my
many years and leaders:
Good leaders:
Visionary, approachable, insightful, open
& trustworthy
- they follow through & lead by example
Bad leaders:
All show, insincere, shallow, pretentious, closed-minded,
but also too easily swayed by pressure groups/people
- they lack strength and depth of character

3. Good Leadership: Some research findings
• Situationally aware
• senses undercurrents - quick to address potential
problems
• Creates an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity regarding
• pedagogy,
• child development,
• management effectiveness, etc.
• Involves staff in decision making
• Willing to, and have the courage to,
actively challenge the status quo

4. Good Leadership:
• Fosters shared beliefs and sense of
community
• Advocates for the school in the broader
community
• Makes use of good data analytics to
monitor school practice and student
learning
• Provides teachers with needed resources
and PD

5. Good Leadership:
• Establishes and maintains a minimal, but effective
set of standard operating procedures
• Affirmation - recognizes success & acknowledges
failure
• Has strong ideals and communicates these
effectively
• Establishes clear goals and helps keep them in focus

6. Good Leadership:
• Has a deep knowledge of curriculum, best practice and
most effective assessment approaches
• Helps to provide an environment for teachers to do their
job without distraction and excess administration
• Establishes and maintains strong lines of communication
for all stake holders
• open & approachable
• seen

7. Good Leadership:
• Flexible - can cope with dissent
• Inspiring - leads by example
• Sensitive to relational dynamics
• Involved
• Recognizes and rewards accomplishments of
teachers

8. New Perspectives: Hattie & His Top 10 Teaching
Strategies
According to John Hattie, high-impact, evidence-based teaching strategies include:
•Direct Instruction
•Note Taking & Other Study Skills
•Spaced Practice
•Feedback
•Teaching Metacognitive Skills
•Teaching Problem Solving Skills
•Reciprocal Teaching
•Mastery Learning
•Concept Mapping
•Worked Examples
Teaching strategies that had little or no impact included:
•Giving students control over their learning
•Problem-based learning
•Teaching test-taking
•Catering to learning styles
•Inquiry-based teaching

9. • IT innovations esp. in pedagogy
• LMS;
• Flipped Learning;
• Integrated Environments like code.org,
• AI Marking
• Growth Mindset
• Extending the Growth Mindset to
‘Deliberate Practice’
• Authentic Learning
• Job Clusters
Good Leadership is always open to
new evidence:

10. Going Beyond:
Good leadership means firstly maintaining existing structures, procedures,
operations and functionality across all the academic departments and
meeting school, State and National requirements.
But TODAY much more is needed
– the Future of Work is very different as we enter the Second Machine Age
We need leaders with vision; courage; wisdom; & insight …

11. Leaders inevitably fail:
Leadership demands two kinds of courage:
• the strength to take a risk, and
• the humility to admit when a risk fails.
• Tosefta Baba Kamma, 7: 5

12. Leaders Are Learners!
• “I have learned much from my teachers,
more from my colleagues, and the most
from my students”- Ta’anis 7a
• -for more see https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-have-learned-most-from-my-students-paul-herring/