Sustainable School Leadership - by Mike Bottery & Wong Ping-Man & George Ngai (Paperback)

About the Book

This highly experienced team of cross-cultural researchers combine scholarly research with over a decade of extensive empirical research using an innovative "portrait" methodology to investigate the challenges that educational leaders on two continents currently face. The kinds of challenges explored include: the personal, such as being new to the job, coping with the role, approaching retirement; the inter-personal, including power relations, personal challenges with staff, parents and children; the local, looking at issues faced by the school in the community; the national, for example government initiatives, inspection; the global, including the impact of economic forced on political and institutional management. The authors show how the combined insights from individual portraits critique national policies and organizational functioning, and can inform leadership research by a better understanding of how links between the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of education promote or discourage school leaders' sustainability. The authors present cross-cultural comparisons of eastern and western approaches to educational leadership, suggesting that sustainability - or lack of it - may have different roots in different cultures.

Book Synopsis

We live in a complex age, with multiple challenges to the practice of educational leadership, and where there is widespread evidence of individuals wanting to retire early from leadership positions, and of fewer wishing to take up the role.

This highly experienced team of cross-cultural researchers combine scholarly research with over a decade of extensive empirical research using an innovative 'portrait' methodology to investigate the challenges that educational leaders on two continents currently face. The kinds of challenges described include:
- the personal (e.g. being new to the job, coping with the role, approaching retirement)
- the inter-personal (e.g. power relations, personal challenges with staff, parents and children)
- the local (e.g. issues faced by the school in the community)
- the national (e.g. government initiatives, inspection)
- the global (e.g. the impact of economic forces on political and institutional management).

Sustainable School Leadership then contributes to the field of educational leadership in several ways. First, the authors bring scholarly enquiry to life by providing detailed descriptions of the challenges which individual educational leaders face in different cultures in a globalised world. Second, they show how the combined insights from individual portraits provide important and meaningful critiques of national policies and organizational functioning. Such critiques can then inform current and future leadership research by a better understanding of how links between the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of education promote or discourage school leaders' sustainability. Finally, the authors present important cross-cultural comparisons of eastern and western approaches to educational leadership, suggesting that sustainability - or a lack of it - may have different roots in different cultures.
Sustainable School Leadership is relevant to students on educational leadership and management courses, academics and researchers and school leaders.

Review Quotes

A book that all new senior leaders should be required to read. It is both well written and challenging. Taking a cross-cultural, research focused approach, the authors have put together a challenging yet inspiring book, which offers leaders help in framing their own leadership sustainability and that of others.
Megan Crawford, Professor and Director of the Plymouth Institute of Education, University of Plymouth, UK

A powerful and well-written text on a topic of significant contemporary interest to practitioners, students, and academics in the field of educational leadership. The writers are at the top of their game in exploring the many challenges that face school leaders across a number of countries.
Mark Brundrett, Professor of Educational Research, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Bottery, Ping-Man and Ngai offer an in-depth analysis of the complexity of sustainable school leadership. Through the development of portraits of school leaders in the UK and Hong Kong, the authors reveal the wicked problems of sustainability. This book is essential to the study and understanding of school leadership.
Patricia A.L. Ehrensal, Assistant Professor in the Educational Policy and Leadership Department, Cabrini University, USA

About the Author

Mike Bottery is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Hull, UK. He has published eight books on issues of educational leadership, values and sustainability, including The Challenges of Educational Leadership (2004) and Educational Leadership for a More Sustainable World (2016).

Wong Ping-Man is Adjunct Professor of Education Administration at the University of Macau, China. He was director of leadership courses at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, China, and is currently Adjunct Professor of the Education University of Hong Kong, China. He has a long list of notable journal articles.

George Ngai is Assistant Professor in educational leadership in the Education University of Hong Kong, China. He is a qualified headteacher, a school manager and has written a variety of articles in this area.