Setting Leadership Priorities
What’s Necessary, What’s Nice, and What’s Got to Go
- Suzette Lovely - Capistrano Unified School District, CA
Do you find yourself so busy digging a ditch with a spoon that you don't have time to go back to the tool shed and fetch a shovel? Are your in-box, and daily schedule at maximum capacity? Does it seem impossible to include those extras that would make your job more enjoyable and satisfying? Conquering overload is the constant challenge of 21st century school administrators. This book breathes fresh air into the often murky world of priority management.
Setting Leadership Priorities teaches busy professionals how to distinguish between information, activities, and situations that must be retained, those that might be refined, and many that should be relinquished. Drawing more than twenty years of experience as a teacher and administrator, Lovely understands that reducing frustration and overload helps administrators by:
o increasing retention rates and improving success on the job
o allowing them to redistribute leadership by delegating
o creating balance in their daily lives and in their long-term professional journey
When the emergencies outnumber the victories and you can't see the door over your towering in-box, it's time to reshuffle your priorities and let clarity emerge.
"Lovely gets right to the heart of what a principal needs to do--and not do--to avoid being overwhelmed by our all-consuming profession. This lively book encourages--no insists--that school leaders make room for the essentials in their professional lives, delegate without guilt, and have the courage to say no. Sprinkled throughout are personal checklists, scripts, and examples of disasters and great successes in the education world. There's something valuable in Setting Leadership Priorities for every principal."
"Suzette Lovely has synthesized a number of best practices and offers an easy-to-read resource--especially for central office leaders."
"A definite must-read for principals who are interested in improving their own work and enjoying it more."
"Lovely has written a valuable and highly practical guide chock full of helpful hints and common sense wisdom. Written in a breezy and easy-to-read style, this book skillfully separates the essential from the tangential in a sea of competing priorities that face principals every day. The book will benefit the struggling new principal as well as the veteran school leader. I wish I'd had this book when I was a principal."
"Sustainable leadership in today's schools goes beyond short-term gains on standardized tests. School leaders need to produce lasting and meaningful improvements in student learning. This book provides valuable and insightful tools that the talented and dedicated leaders of our schools want and deserve."
"The perspectives and resources in this book will help principals to make a genuine difference for their students, and to maintain balance in their lives. Suzette Lovely shows how the principalship can be re-shaped into a position that is both powerful and possible."
"Suzette Lovely challenges traditional school reform efforts and leadership nostrums with a fresh and compelling alternative. From the practical elements of meetings and delegation to the personal priorities of health and family responsibilities, the author provides a comprehensive approach to leadership priorities that will help struggling leaders survive and will help successful leaders achieve greater heights."
"Most school administrators are familiar with such adages of leadership as 'Effective leaders do first things first' or 'Work smarter not harder.' But knowing how to recite adages is much different from knowing how to apply them. This book offers specific, practical, and valuable tips that can help harried peripatetic school administrators improve their effectiveness."
"A fascinating and practical set of ideas and strategies, useful to effective leaders."
"A highly practical approach to coping with the daily realities of leading schools."
"Anyone who feels overwhelmed at work will find that this book is a wake-up call; Lovely offers a plentitude of strategies to prevent burnout on all levels: intellectually, emotionally, and physically."
