On Becoming a School Leader: A Person-Centered Challenge

Arthur W. Combs, Ann B. Miser, and Kathryn S. Whitaker

About the Authors  |  Comments

About This Book

The work of educational leaders depends on relationships with people--faculty and staff members, students, other administrators, parents, and community members. This book presents a new way of viewing leadership: how to become person-centered leaders. Rather than relying on outdated ways of managing schools, principals and other leaders must take up the challenge of paying attention to the people issues of the school.

Through many examples, the authors show how school leaders must

• consciously seek the appropriate type of data to respond to;
• increase their capacity for empathy;
• develop healthy personal self-concepts; and
• learn how to develop healthy self-concepts in others, both students and teachers.

School leaders also should be committed to a broad purpose for schooling, should be informed about how their beliefs and behavior influence the organization of the school, and should be able to participate in interactions with authenticity. They also must be able to help create authenticity in their school organizations.

In these ways, school leaders will create schools that are learning organizations for everyone. Universities that prepare future school leaders should spend more time developing leaders who are person centered in their approach to leading schools. This new way of thinking will require leader preparation programs to change their priorities for curriculum, academic activities, and field experiences.

See the book's table of contents and read excerpts.

• Purchase
  
• Share this page

About the Authors

ARTHUR W. COMBS was a noted teacher, consultant, and psychologist. In 1947, along with Donald Snygg, he invented perceptual-experiential psychology, a systematic frame of reference for the study of persons. He is past president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and served as the editor of the 1962 ASCD Yearbook, Perceiving, Behaving, Becoming. He wrote 22 books and monographs and more than 150 articles on psychology, counseling, and education.

Read More

ANN B. MISER has held the positions of high school teacher, assistant principal, associate principal, and principal. She served as a high school principal in Vermont and as the secondary principal of the University of Northern Colorado Laboratory School in Greeley, Colorado. Currently, she teaches in the School of Education at Colorado State University and coordinates a Professional Development School site at a high school in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Read More

KATHRYN S. WHITAKER also is experienced in K-12 and higher education. She has held positions as a middle school teacher, high school assistant principal, and elementary principal. She is coauthor, with Bruce Barnett, of a 1996 book, Restructuring for Student Learning (A School Leader's Library). Currently, she teaches in the Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Northern Colorado, a position she has held for 10 years.

Read More