Theories of Educational Leadership and Management


by Tony Bush

I read this (4th edition) text to get an overview of current perspectives on leadership and management. In that sense the book is extremely comprehensive; it draws on four decades of key research to summarise differences and similarities between the different models.

Each perspective that Bush addresses - each one given its own chapter - is given a set of definitions, key characteristics, and some analytical scrutiny. Bush's conclusions draw them all together using some practical parallels to real life organizations.

I'm finding straight away that I'm able to use the book as a kind of theoretical lens when reading other books and articles about leadership. I've also accessed one or two of the well-selected sources cited by Bush, to further develop my understanding of distributed & strategic leadership. The tabular representation that Bush provides (p.199) of the categorisations of leadership and management has the potential for providing an analytical framework for future studies.

The book may have benefited from either deeper scrutiny of each model, or stronger links to a greater range of practical situations (to appeal to leaders looking for tips & advice), or more on practical analysis of the models, and implications for the future given current educational policy & practices. However, all-in-all a highly recommendable book, which I'll be keeping close to hand for the next few months.

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Regards, DJA