Book Review

CHAPTERS BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTERS

1. The Real Context This chapter deals with the context of the leadership that teacher and head teacher
For Leadership actually face. Despite the complexities and demands of leadership. Some leaders are
more effective than others. The reason is that successful leaders pay attention to seven
principles that help them navigate through the inner structure of schools where real
change takes place. I show how successful leaders think and behave when tending to
each of the principles.
2.Leading With Ideas This chapter examines the sources of authority that leaders may use as the basis for
their leadership practice. Sergiovanni argues that it is the idea based leadership that
has the greatest potential for helping us realize our goals. Key is purposing and
building of idea structures that bring people together in a common cause and as part
of a moral web of mutual responsibilities. Ideas are at the heart of a school’s culture
and the foundation for building a learning community.
3.New Leadership Roles This chapter examines the relationship between leadership and change, arguing that
And Competencies too much emphasis is given to the change process itself and not enough to the
substance of the change. Leaders will have to master seven basic competencies in
order to lead effectively in the future: the management of attention, the management
of meaning, the management of trust, the management of self, as well as the
management of commitment.

4. Leading Communities Once established communities of responsibility become powerful substitutes for
Of Responsibility bureaucratic and personality-based leadership. Building community in schools is
important. Community satisfies the needs that teachers and students have to be
connected to each other and to the school, helps everyone focus on the common good,
provides students with a safe harbor in a stormy sea, builds relationship, enhances
responsibility and support learning.

5. School Character, This chapter examines the concept of school character, how it works, and how it is
School Effectiveness, And related to school effectiveness. School with character, sergiovanni notes, knows who
Layered Standards they are, have developed a common understanding of their purpose, and have faith in
their ability to celebrate this uniqueness as a powerful way to achieve their goals.

6.Leadership And In this chapter Sergiovanni argues that new theory of leadership rooted in learning
Learning and rooted in moral commitments needs to be developed if we are to be responsive to
today’s complex world of schooling.

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Book Review

LEADERSHIP

WHAT’S IN IT FOR SCHOOLS?

THOMAS SERGIOVANNI
Introduction of the Author:
Thomas J. Sergiovanni is Lillian Radford Professor of Education and Administration at
Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. He received his B.S. degree (1958) in elementary
education from the State University of New York, Geneseo; his M.A. degree (1959) in
educational administration from Teachers College, Columbia University; and his Ed.D. Degree
(1966), also in educational administration, from the University of Rochester.
Sergiovanni’s ideas and theories have transformed the understanding of how schools can
operate to their fullest potential and leaders can lead most effectively. Sergiovanni has led the
field of educational leadership towards a paradigm shift. His ideas have influenced the leadership
definition and explanations in all over the world.

Rationale for Selecting the Book

Living in third world country and working as a teacher in Government context in 21st
century, I realize that traditional approaches of leadership are not going to make us an
independent nation. I think we need new concepts and approaches of leadership to meet the
challenges of 21st century and solve our problems. After reading and skimming so many books
for review I found this book very relevant to my context, where “Follow Me Leadership”
approach is a big hindrance in school improvement. Sergiovanni explains all the core concepts of
ideas based leadership and also focusses on the learning community’s concepts in this book.
The second reason which is behind the selection of this book, is that, this book is not like
other books of leadership which often focus too much on theoretical part of leadership and pay
very little attention towards practical part of leadership. Sergiovanni in this book not only briefly
describes the very notion of idea based leadership, but also pays great attention towards practical
part of leadership. For example when he talks about competencies and skills which are necessary
for idea based leaders to acquire, it means he believes in practicing these skills and competencies
in the real context rather than only theorizing these concepts.

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Audience of the Book:

Every book has its own audience, because audience of the book determines the language
and intellectual level of the book. There are very few books that address wider range of
audiences.
The audience of this book is busy practitioners. This book presents research and thinking
about contemporary education issues and presents it in an accessible and relevant way.
This book provides the answers of these questions, what makes a good leader? Does good
leadership matter in helping schools be more successful? This concise and accessible book
examines leadership in a practical way by helping principals, heads, teachers and parents
establish their roles and responsibilities and get to grips with the unique leadership requirements
of schools. Sergiovanni tries to explore issues such as leadership, what it is and how it works,
character and culture as keys to improvement, how to build commitment, motivation and
improved performance, and using local standards and assessments to improve schools and
leadership as a form of social capital. Overall, I think this book is also for anyone who cares
about improving the leadership in our schools.

Discussion on the Book:

This book is divided into seven chapters; first few chapters of this book explain the
context for leadership, sources of authority, relationship between leadership and change. While
last part of the book explains the school character, learning community concept, moral purposes
of the leadership. Sergiovanni’s main argument in this book is that new theory of leadership
rooted in learning and rooted in moral commitments needs to be developed if we are to be
responsive to today’s complex world of schooling. He argues that it is the idea-based leadership
which can face the complexities of the modern era. He draws a clear line between Idea-based
leadership and “follow-me” leadership, he says,

“Leaders like to think of themselves as being good motivators who know how to handle people and to get people to
do things that they should by being persuasive in personality or in style. But following a leader because of her or his
personality or his or her interpersonal skills is really a poor reason.” p. 29

He further elaborates that teachers do not follow the heads because they are clever
manipulators who know which motivational buttons to press or are pleasant persons who are fun

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to be with, but because heads are substantial people who stand for something and they are
persons of substance and base their practice on ideas. The problem which Sergiovanni sees in
the traditional leadership theories as Pyramid, Railroad, and High-performance theory that they
all emphasize contractual connections, they assume that teachers are motivated primarily by self-
interest, and act as individuals to negotiate an exchange settlement with others and with the
school that best meet their needs (Sergiovanni, 2000, p.33). Sergiovanni wants to build
community of responsibility; he argues that community of responsibility is based on covenantal
relationship rather than contractual relationship. He believes cultural connections and covenantal
relationships are the foundational pillars of community of responsibility.
Sergiovanni in this book also argues that traditionalist theories cannot be generalized;
they are too rational, too scripted for messy world of education. Same thing produce different
results in different contexts. Sergiovanni believes that a new theory of leadership is required
which should be grounded in moral connections. According to him moral connections are always
grounded in cultural norm that’s why new theory has to fulfill contextual requirements
(Sergiovanni, 2000). I believe that, it is necessary for new leadership theory to address
contextual realities and problems, because borrowing and implementing theories from foreign
contexts means we ignore our context. As Khaki(2010) notes that theories of leadership and
models drawn from industrialized societies cannot automatically be applied to developing world
contexts, which are necessarily different due to many factors, including school leadership and
management practices, ideologies and curriculum orientations.
Sergiovanni believes that leadership is not only about finding solutions but helping others
to understand the problems and how to live with them in this imperfect world. I personally
believe idea based leadership is highly practical and relevant to changing contexts, because for
generating ideas we need to involve others, and this involvement of others is called learning
community. It is an ongoing process of ideas’ generation by involving others.
Sergiovanni gives high importance to purposing and shared values, according to him
when purposes are in place and shared values are cultivated, an idea framework evolves in the
school that encourages teachers to respond by feeling a sense of obligation to embody these ideas
in their behavior (p. 29). Fullan (2001) also considers leadership is about creating a sense of
purpose and directions it’s about getting alignment and it’s about inspiring people to achieve.
Sergiovanni continues his argument in favor of idea based leadership and says ideas give leader

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substance and makes him stand for something worth following. He believes that ideas are at the
heart of school culture. He argues that ideas give leaders source of authority not policies,
personality and position give them source of authority. Idea based leaders get their authority not
from others but from their own ideas. Idea based leadership teachers are respected, capable,
autonomous and professionals, because they share ideas, purpose, values and beliefs. According
to Sergiovanni leadership has four important components; they are leadership, followership,
shared ideas, and action. When we practice leadership, an interaction takes place between leader
and follower, within which ideas and sentiments are exchanged, that leads to evolution of
something new and different. He argues that actual doing happens when there is agreement on
ideas. I see “Agreement on Ideas”, a problematic part of idea based leadership, because as
Sergiovanni says for ideas’ generation people need to work together, sometimes it is very
difficult to generate ideas in collegial setting. Because each one of us is different and think in
different ways, how can it be possible that all who are involved in idea’s generation process will
produce same ideas? I think it is a debatable concept about idea based leadership by Sergiovanni.
He also believes Idea based leadership is a hard sell (P.30).
Sergiovanni believes ideas based leadership approach gives source of authority to leaders
by making ideas central to practice and it also can save leaders behavioral nuances that are
attached to other leadership approaches. Sergiovanni’s leader in this book acts in a way that its
actions symbolize the vision and help teachers and students to make sense of their actions. This
is the best model of leadership especially in my context, because in our context leaders’ actions
symbolize their sense of authority and the element which can give ownership to others is
missing.
Sergiovanni’s leader in this book believes in conversation not in communication,
because it is conversation when ideas’ generation takes place while in communication ideas
exchange take place, and for me communication sometimes lacks ownership of others due to its
monotonous mode. Ultimate goal of idea based leadership is to change bureaucratic setting of
school organization into learning community, which has some moral purposes, and according to
Sergiovanni, (1998) “Moral communities generates leadership capital. Leadership in moral
communities is idea based (P.43)”.
Sergiovanni’s leader in learning community believes in caring, sharing, helping, guiding
and serving. According to Sergiovanni his leader in learning community does not believe

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students as clients, because according to Sergiovanni considering student as client or customer

will not furnish the students. Sergiovanni sees students as responsible citizens having some
responsibilities on their shoulders in learning communities. I think here Sergiovanni wants to say
that modern concept of education is influencing our education system by making students as
clients and schools as places where knowledge transformation takes place; it seems to me that he
is against the commercialization of education, and he is very vocal about that. Here I also agree
with him, because modernization has changed the meaning of students, teachers and schools.
Sergiovanni’s “Idea generator leader” needs to get mastery in seven basic competencies,
they are: management of attention, management of meaning, management of trust, management
of self, management of paradox, management of effectiveness and management of commitment
(Sergiovanni, 2001 p. 51). In fact Sergiovanni believes in highly skill full leader, who can deal
with human subjects in modern era and produce results. Throughout the book Sergiovanni
defines skills, responsibilities and competencies for his 21st century’s school leader. I see
Sergiovanni a highly practical intellectual who believes in practice rather than theory. This book
I believe is a practical guide for school leaders.
Sergiovanni is fully aware about the challenges of converting bureaucratic organizational
structure of a school into learning community in this modern era. I believe one challenge that we
often face in communities is tension between “Individualism” and “Collectivism”. But once
again in this book Sergiovanni explains this notion of tension in detail for his 21st century’s
leader. Sergiovanni explains a rule here to protect individualism in idea based leadership
approach that ideas should be accepted freely. Sergiovanni makes it rule of thumb for idea based
leadership by saying that “let’s take respect as a common value”, he further elaborates that after
establishing respect as a value there are many ways to show it (Sergiovanni, 2001, p.68).
Sergiovann’s interpretation of community in this book is abstract; it looks like that he is
viewing community as an amorphous and homogenous entity, and other markers of identity as
ethnicity, religion, class and color are ignored. I believe these things make a lot of difference
when we try to change school’s bureaucratic organization into learning community. These
variables play pivotal role in our schools, we need to pay proper attention to these markers of
identity.
Sergiovanni’s leader in this book is fully aware about the unique cultures of the schools,
because as Sergiovanni adds, “what a school stands for and a unique commitment to this sense so

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important, because these qualities help to protect and grow a school’s “life world” (Sergiovanni,
2001, P.77)”. Sergiovanni considers life world as a tool to define school character, life world
according to Sergiovanni, includes traditions, rituals, and norms. So when we move from school
to school character and life world also changes. In fact Sergiovanni does not believe in fixed
standardization, he believes that one standard cannot be implement on all context, we have to be
flexible in our approach. Sergiovanni sees standard neither objective nor scientific, but as
subjective (Sergiovanni, 2001, p.85). He sees setting standards as a process best served by
broad-based, reasoned consideration and deliberation action-neither of which are possible when
parents and other citizens are “moon-struck” by images of standards as infallible and
unchallengeable (Sergiovanni, 2001, p.85).
I agree with Sergiovanni when he says that standards are set by peoples who make human
decisions about what they believe or think is appropriate or is not appropriate. I believe every
school should have some standards, setting standards once again is the job of leader but for that
purpose everyone needs to be taken on the board.

Conclusion:
Throughout this book, Sergiovanni attempts to reframe the role of leadership in a school
from an old traditionalist paradigm of leadership which focuses on management and control and
view that a school is a formal and bureaucratic organization, to a new paradigm of empowerment
through caring, acknowledging the expertise and ideas of teachers and students, and facilitating
their active participation in the school through Idea based leadership paradigm.
I believe this book has succeeded in forming a sound vision of what school leadership
should be about in the new millennium. What makes this book valuable is that it proposes a new
theory of school leadership which is based on Ideas.

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Book Review

REFERENCES

Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change San Francisco: Jossey- Bas.

Khaki, J. A. (2010) Effective school leadership practices: case studies from Pakistan. In Safdar,
Q & Khaki, J. A. (Eds).educational leadership in Pakistan ideals and realities.Oxford
University press.

Sergiovanni, J.S. (1998). Leadership as pedagogy, capital development and school effectiveness
leadership in education vol (1), Issue (1), pp.37-46.

Sergiovanni, J.S. (2000).Leadership for schoolhouse:how is it different?why is it important San

Francisco: Sansome street.