Book Review Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement By Thomas J. Sergiovanni :: essays research papers

The heart of leading has to do with what a person believes, set, dreams about, and is pull to. - Sergiovanni SummaryTarget Audience of the BookAccording to the author in the introduction of the book, this work was basically intended to serve as a force for developing moral leading in schools geared toward superintendents, supervisors, principals, and any opposite persons at the upper levels of school management. The authors design was to provoke thoughts and raise questions in the minds of these mint to help them analyze the leadership processes in their schools and help them make ad bonniements to the leadership process that will in the end reduce the need for "direct" leadership in favor of "moral" leadership. He also makes site that this book can serve as a "counterpoint" to some of the textbooks, currently being used in university courses on leadership. Sergiovanni also states that the book would be useful for parents, school board members and po licy makers. Because I have been involved in the raising process from the teaching side of education, I see this book as being of particular value to teachers as well. Overall, this book is for anyone who cares about improving the leadership in our schools.The Scope of the BookThe aspects of leadership covered are broad, from analyzing the traditional leadership roles, to the tapping of higher levels of human potential. It is written from the standpoint of managers or leaders and covers point by point the authors ideas of how to shift the environment of schools from that of a "factory" to one of a learning community. Sergiovanni discusses "living school" in leadership rather than just being concerned with the facts and figures involved in "playing school." The viewpoint of the author is being concerned about the leadership processes in schools that are presently authentic as the norm. Sergiovanni would like to see school leadership shift to one that is self -motivated by teachers who want to do a great job, not one where the teachers tang they have to as a result of dependency on "extrinsic" rewards. A school, he says, is a community with a shared sense of values and purpose. He describes a "virtuous school" as one founded on the beliefs that a school must be a community, that this school community includes parents, teachers, students and other community members. He believes that every student can learn, that caring for the whole child is the key to academic success, and that mutual respect and positive expectations are the operating(a) dynamics.