WHY IS SCHOOL LEADERSHIP PREPARATION SO COMPLEX

Abstract: When will educational critics, school administrators, and writers, including this one, stop telling the same story about the requisite skills and dispositions required to prepare exemplary school leaders? These skills and dispositions developed by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) in 1983 have changed very little in the 2003 Standards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership by the National Council for the Accreditation of Colleges of Education (NCATE) or the standards by Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC). Numerous descriptive research studies and observations of best practices of successful school leaders leave little doubt skills and dispositions must be included in leadership preparation and professional development. These basic skills for both building level and system administrators include visionary leadership, policy, law and governance, communication and community relations, organizational management and finance, curriculum design, instructional management and accountability, personnel management and assessment. The unsolved mysteries however, are to what extent do university professors stress the skills and dispositions and do the standards actually shape top school executives who can lead schools to exemplary status? This chapter will make a wide sweep of leadership research, exploring some of the mysteries and attempting to define the term “leadership.” affirm the difficulties in linking leadership preparation in universities and executive development programs in preparing individuals to become successful leaders, examine what seems to be missing in leadership research, who is in charge when leaders back down and how do leaders keep the organization on the proper edge for productivity when faced with inevitable political tensions between members of the community, school board and school administrators?

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