Reflective Paper of A Book Review
By
Assistant Instructor
Professional Development Center, North
University Road, Konodass, Gilgit.
Ph. No: (+92) 05811-454132-4 Ext: 3017
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Email (Private): dk_hunzai@yahoo.com, darvesh.karim@gmail.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I especially wish to acknowledge the contributions of the following people who have helped me to bring this reflective paper to completion. All these directly or indirectly were involved for the articulation of this short paper.
I feel very much proud to learn many new leadership themes from a well experienced facilitator Madam Zubaida Bana, who inspired me (and the group as a whole) to examine the book to learn the new and exciting ways of leadership, and offered insightful and helpful comments and suggestions on our presentation.
I have been privileged to work with many dynamic, adaptive and creative colleagues who represent the essential qualities of effective leadership. Yes; the group members; Huzefa Dohadwala and Karima Damani. I really appreciate their kindness, generosity and knowledge sharing attitude.
Throughout the development and writing of this book review and presentation, I have been fortunate to have the support and assistance of two of my colleagues as well as the roommates; Sharifullah Baig and Sultan Alam who provided practical examples, and suggestions. I am very grateful for their willingness to help, their tolerance and patience while my working in hostel even during their rest timing.
I would also like to express my appreciation to the ideal and world class environment and facilities provided at IED to open new horizons of knowledge.
BOOK REVIEW
INTRODUCTION/PREFACE[1]
Book Title: The New Work of Educational Leaders – Changing leadership practice in an era of school reform[2]Author: Peter Gronn, Faculty Member of Education Department at Monash University, Australia.
Author’s Profile: A researcher, a professor and a writer. Published books extensively on aspects of school, educational and organizational leadership. His research interests include all aspects of leadership, in particular, learning leadership and the development of leaders, distributed leadership etc.
Publisher: Sage Publications, London in 2003.
RATIONAL
After having assigned this task, we found many books related to leadership and to have a skim through reading, we borrowed three different books but the books were not fitting to the purpose as one book was the collection of different articles written by various authors, while other two were also not purely related to ‘educational’ leadership. Finally, we found this book and it seemed related to our aim as the book’s main focus was ‘distributed leadership’. In academic circles there is buzz about several new themes emerging known as Designer Leadership, Distributed View of Leadership and Disengagement of Leaders. So, to explore these themes to some extent, we selected this book.
Secondly, we were very much lucky to know that IED[3] Library has three copies of this book for each of us. But when we tried to go through the initial parts of book we found that it is not an easy read as the language used was much difficult and our existing vocabulary was not accommodating the words and terminologies. Hence, to have an expert view and guidance we approached our worthy facilitator Ms. Zubaida Bana[4] and she adequately convinced us to work on this book by accepting it as a challenge. She further authenticated the book as relevant to our requirement.
Lastly; as the specialization course we have selected Educational Management and Leadership, so keeping the new demands and trends of leadership in mind; we opted to read this book.
CONTENTS/THEME
Book Structure
Book is articulated in two parts: the 'architecture' and the 'ecology' of leadership. In Part I, three chapters outline a new building of leadership by developing the themes of design, distribution and disengagement, while in Part II author discusses in five chapters about What do Leaders do?, Leaders’ Committees and Meetings, Leadership Teams, the Emotions of Leaders and lastly Leadership as Greedy Work.
Part I
Designer-leadership means producing leaders according to design specifications. In our context we can relate it to the policy that unless one doesn’t get the M.Ed or MA (Education) degree he is assumed incompetent to become leader or principal, specifically in government institutions. According to author standards are very important to ensure quality in schools, but in my opinion along with the standards, work context is also essential as it varies place to place.
Distributed-leadership means interdependency and coordinated work. This theme is presented as an alternative to focused leadership. According to Gronn (2003) researches show that it is the new trend increased after 1980. Distributed leadership is certainly a step up from one person leadership as we can see the work of head teacher is increasing and the responsibilities of managing the school needs to be shared. This is also articulated by Arrowsimith (2007) that “Distributed leadership (DL) is an emerging form of power distribution in school which extends authority and influence to groups or individuals in a way which is at least partly contrary to hierarchical arrangements” (p.22). In the context of Pakistan, we can partially relate this leadership theme to private educational institutions or self managed organizations.
Disengagement means inability of school systems to attract principals from among the teaching ranks because teachers are becoming unwilling to take on leadership positions is explored (Gronn, 2003). Teachers use to be in their own comfort zones and because of challenging tasks and responsibilities they hesitate to take initiative.
Part II
Five chapters explain ‘ecology’ of leadership in this part. Author asks, 'What do leaders do?' and then proceeds to offer a detailed synthesis and critical review of research findings since the 1950s across a number of different countries (Gronn, 2003). Then, author focuses on committees/meetings and teams, respectively to strengthen distributed leadership. Finally Gronn draws on earlier concept of 'greedy institutions' to propose that leadership is being reconstructed as 'greedy work', which demands one to be constantly and fully there. Although there are many aspects of this image that are immediately identifiable but there is probably some misunderstanding between 'greedy work', 'greedy practices', 'greedy occupations', 'greedy policies' and 'greedy rulers and policy makers'. There is not clarity about what or who is being greedy, the institutions or the individuals. However, I couldn’t categorize.
REFLECTION/success & challanges
In my opinion only distributed leadership is the theme which the writer wishes to favor and strengthen. Overall the book draws on a wide range of international literature by referring 471 books/articles. It seems highly a theoretical work. I must say that the themes discussed could be presented in a simple language but I surely agree with Hart (XXX) who articulates this manner as “some authors seem to neglect the needs of their potential readers and manage to make relatively simple ideas confusing” (p.10).
It was an excellent experience to work closely with nice fellows having different capabilities[5] like intensive reading skills[6], finest articulation skills of words[7] and computer expertise[8]. Amalgamation of these capabilities, in my opinion was the patronizing and driving factors for understanding the topic, which resulted a meaningful production.
As far as the challenges are concerned; I must emphasis that, I didn’t face any genuine challenge, but choosing an appropriate book became a challenge for us initially, while on the next stage the book itself was a challenge in terms of understanding and I couldn’t judge whether the weakness is in me or in the articulation of book! The next minor challenge to us was the involvement in different groups in different courses in between this period and it was a problem for every individual to spare time for the group work, but we did manage.
The last challenge; which I faced was the articulation of this reflective paper by limiting myself around 1000 words. Initially the reflective paper I wrote was consisting of 1800 words.
REFERENCES
Arrowsmith, T. (2007). Distributed leadership in secondary schools in England: the impact on the role of the head teacher and other issue. Management in Education. 21(2), 21-27.
Gronn, P (2003). The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform. London. Sage Publications.
Hart, C. (xxx). The literature review in research. Doing a Literature Review. London: Sage Publications.
[1] After many attempts, I could only reduce the words to 1035 from 1800 words.
[2] This book is supposed to be the continuation of Gronn’s earlier book ‘The Making of Educational Leaders’.
[3] Institute of Educational Development
[4] Madam Zubaida Bana was the facilitator for the M.Ed course ‘Effective Educational Leadership’
[5] Different capabilities, skills, approaches, experiences and backgrounds.
[6] Huzefa Dohadwala (one of group members) was good at intensive reading.
[7] Karima Damani was good at this skill.
[8] Darvesh Karim (me) was good at computer usage.
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