The principals' role in education is filled with overwhelming responsibilities for school leaders. In light of education reform efforts (i.e. increased accountability, organizational restructuring, curricular innovations and instructional strategies), school leaders balance how to effectively lead and negotiate tensions they encounter personally and professionally. With an alarming concern of principal shortage, school districts across the nation are facing an increased demand for administrators at all levels. The expected retirements of 13,000 principals across the nation coupled with principal shortage will create unprecedented vacancies for school districts. Despite those challenges, how do qualified and willing principals who remain in their positions successfully lead?
In this insightful book, Boris‐Schacter and Langer present findings on practicing principals' resiliency and flexibility to effectively lead despite (p. 1) “increasing personal demands and mandates from the federal, state, community and district levels.” The authors sought the diverse perspectives of principals from urban, suburban, and rural school principals. Boris‐Schacter and Langer conducted surveys and interviews with over 200 principals across the country. The demographic of the participants included: male, female, white, and people of color; elementary, middle, and high schools in 12 states; and, novices and seasoned veteran principals. Additional data for analysis and inclusion were obtained from unsolicited newsletters and memos as evidence of how principals communicated agendas to the parents, teachers and students of their schools (p. 2). The book focuses on principals' shortage, tensions and negotiation in school leadership. It compiles, organizes, and analyzes these ideas and presents them in five chapters. Each chapter is prefaced with a vignette that deals with principals' work in context.
Chapter one addresses the principal shortage and examines why current policies and practices have been inadequate. First, it presents a vignette on how the (p. 8) “principalship has evolved into an almost impossible position”. Second, the authors examine current efforts to stem the shortage and how communities look outside of education to fill leadership posts. Finally, the authors present findings from their national study of America's principals on (p. 13) “what challenged [participants] personal and professional effectiveness, how they coped with those challenges, and how those coping mechanisms translated into alternative principals models.” Three types of tension common to all of the study respondents were identified: instruction and management; work and personal lives, and societal/community expectations and individual priorities (p. 16). These tensions are discussed in depth in subsequent chapters (2, 3 and 4) and chapter 5 and the conclusion present alternative models and lessons learned to transform the role of the principalship.
Chapter two examines the first tension identified by the principals in the study – negotiating instructional leadership and managerial tasks. Similar to chapter one, the authors present a vignette to provide a contextual framework for analyzing their first finding. The authors build upon the vignette on balancing supervision, modeling instruction and dealing with non‐instructional tasks. Weaving the vignette into the analysis, the discussion moves into the (p. 21) “dissonance between what principals imagined they would be doing before assuming the principalship and how they actually spend their time”. More time is often devoted to activities that principals view as unsuitable and prevents them from engaging in instructional leadership. The lack of balance between instructional leadership and managerial tasks, according to the authors raises the question, “what is the role of the school principal?” Given the tension between instructional leadership and managerial tasks, the latter section of this chapter focuses on how principals successfully negotiate that tension. The participants “effectively coped through artful negotiations” in three ways:
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Negotiated with central office personnel to participate in hiring building‐level staff
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Negotiated the delegation of tasks to others.
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Negotiated their schedules so that there was deliberately structured time for designated instructionally related activities (p. 26).
By engaging in these successful approaches, principals are able to afford time to facilitate improved instructional practices in their schools; however, they negotiate other hurdles.
Chapter three addresses another hurdle principals encounter – negotiating personal and professional balance. The vignette in this chapter examines how a female administrator has to choose between her responsibilities as a principal and as a mother and wife. Similarly, the participants, both men and women expressed that (p. 35) “life circumstances and professional experiences affect the concept of achieving a balance in the principalship.” School leadership has become an all‐encompassing job (i.e. responsible for education, entertainment, infrastructure, legal issues and after‐school activities). Routinely personal sacrifices are made by school leaders to fulfill their professional responsibilities. But, unintended consequences may result (i.e. fostering unexpressed resentment, comprising work performance etc.) from the personal sacrifices made. As reiterated by the authors (p. 40), “when one is unable to separate the professional work from a personal life, the struggle for balance becomes discouraging.”
While the authors look at the tension between the professional and personal, they also examine effective coping strategies the participants used to resolve this tension. Participants asserted that they must (p. 41) “determine who they are, what they value, and how their passions could be integrated with their goals” (i.e. both personal and professional). This meshing of personal and professional identity, value and passion creates a process that enables leaders to “decide when to separate and integrate their human and professional selves”. A detailed discussion segues into how principals search for ways of maintaining a life while performing their professional responsibilities. School leaders have an obligation to find the optimal balance between the personal and professional and this can be accomplished by establishing priorities.
Chapter four presents the last tension principals encounter – negotiating community expectations and personal definitions of effective leadership. Introduced with a vignette on increased parental demands and community relations pressure, this chapter addresses how the participants defined and responded to community concerns. With the no child left behind (NCLB) legislation, many parents are voicing their expectations about curricular studies and enrichment but (p. 55) “principals' aren't always prepared for the public's participation” in addition to those of the bureaucracy. While responsibilities for dealing with community issues have increased, administrative support to assist principals with these demands is limited, thereby, diminishing their leadership effectiveness. But the participants contend that by delegating their responsibilities to others and keeping the community informed about their ideas and goals, they develop a platform to engage in collective decision‐making. The authors emphasize that (p. 66) “principals need to hear from the community and react intelligently to their concerns”. In doing so, they create adequate time and have support to convey their ideas and philosophy.
The final sections of the book, chapter 5 and the conclusion consider the negotiated tensions from the previous chapters and presents alternative principal models and lessons learned. Boris‐Schacter and Langer argue that (p. 72) “America's schools need a revolutionary rethinking of how the principal defines and conducts business and propose an alteration of cultural norms, work/life boundaries, and professional expectations.” Because there's no ideal model on the best way to be a principal or administer a school, the ideas for new principals' models address three essential questions:
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How can the work be more focused on pedagogy and more attractive to talented educators?
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How can the job be reconceived to better honor the principal's personal and professional time?
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How can the principal spend less time at school events and more time on advancing academic achievement?
The participants' ideas also fell into structural and cultural responses that examine flexible models to principals' tensions. Discussed in elaborate details, these ideas present approaches on how to respond to the vast shortage of principals in America's schools.
As an attempt to address the national leadership shortage, Balanced Leadership: How Effective Principals Manage their Work identifies barriers to principals' professional effectiveness and satisfaction, and examines negotiated tensions through the experiences of successful principals. Whether it is increased accountability, mounting pressure regarding the quality of public school, or changing social conditions, the principalship is becoming less attractive to qualified applicants. The responsibilities of principals have been altered drastically coupled with insufficient compensation and unworkable conditions causing more principals to take early retirements. But those who have remained in the principalship present thoughtful approaches on how to negotiate tensions and sustain the work of principals. As Boris‐Schacter and Langer strongly urge, (principals) voices deserve to be heard, and their ideas merit implementation (p. 88). Will the educational community respond?
Highly recommended for leadership preparation programs, this book offers constructive approaches on how to make the principalship a more attractive field. The vignettes included in the book will be useful as case studies analysis. They will help pre‐service administrators probe deeply the tensions often confronted by principals.
