Leadership & Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action

by Michael Fullan

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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Pursue long-term sustainability without jeopardizing short-term results!

As agencies have pushed for greater performance and public accountability over the past two decades, we have seen some incremental improvements. But all too often, experience reveals that these improvements are temporary. Leadership & Sustainability provides a comprehensive examination of what leaders at all levels of the educational system can do to pave the way for large-scale, sustainable reform.

Building on ideas established in his best-selling publication The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, author Michael Fullan confronts a question that has never been addressed before: How do you develop and sustain a greater number of system thinkers in action, or new theoreticians? These proactive system leaders are at the heart of the issue of sustainability, for they are the ones to bring about deeper reform while simultaneously helping to produce other theoreticians working on the same issues.

Linking abstract concepts to concrete examples, this groundbreaking work defines an agenda for the system thinker in action, including eight elements of sustainability that can be applied to any public service or corporate institution:

Public service with a moral purpose
Commitment to changing the context at all levels
Lateral capacity building through networks
Intelligent accountability and vertical relationships
Deep learning
Dual commitment to short-term and long-term results
Cyclical energizing
The long lever of leadership

Leadership & Sustainability is an engaging and powerful book from one of the world's leading authorities on school change. It provides clear ideas and strategies for achieving deep, sustainable reform in education.

See Leadership & Sustainability (Multimedia Kit) (20060301)

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 4 out of 5 stars

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Lost in the Prose, 2006-02-26
Despite the positive reaction some of my friends had to this book, I have to say that I remain unmoved. As a whole, I find this book to be a disappointment.

Not to say that there aren't many worthwhile things to find in this book. Simply reminding readers of the importance of sustaining success (which is an entirely different animal than achieving short-term results) makes this book valuable. I am particularly interested in his assertions about the effective leader's ability to train new leaders to follow in his footsteps as an important part of sustainability.

On the other hand, this book--for all of the good things it has to say--is shockingly poor in its prose. For a book as slim as this one, it is a trial to get through. The number of numbered lists is mind-boggling as is the number of footnotes and references to others' work. Synthesis can be valuable but it should be more readable than this. In addition, Mr. Fullan makes a number of assertions that he does very little to back-up with data or specific evidence.

When it comes right down to it, this book reads like a series of platitudes about leadership that doesn't really bring its point home. Mr. Fullan may have a lot of valuable help to give but a reader will find it hard to gather it from this, even if he makes it to the end.

1 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Fullan's latest, 2005-09-26
Highly recommended reading....Fullan uses current research to highlight thoughts leaders can use to sustain improvement within thier organizations.....

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