Book review by Ed Ladd.
It has been twenty years since Fullan published his seminal work on leadership entitled Leading in a Culture of Change. And, although it has been two decades since Fullan’s framework for effective leadership was presented, his core ideas appear to be more aligned and more necessary now than ever before in a world that has changed dramatically, while schools in many cases have remained the same. Fullan, and his team of researchers, have collected significant data that shows most leadership in business and in schools is largely ineffective, but he still strongly believes that with the right goals, focus, and understanding of change, effective leaders can be developed. He states, “In our work over the past decade we have pretty much concluded that schools as we know them are past their due date.” Change has become more complex and more accelerated and more unpredictable. The goals of his book are twofold: “. . . get organizations to a point where their ‘change capacity’ deals with external adaptation and internal integration,” and “. . . get to the point where organizations practically challenge the status quo.” These are lofty goals, indeed, but Fullan provides a strong roadmap on how to get there.
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