Fearless Conversations School Leaders Have To Have

Step out of Your Comfort Zone and Really Help Kids To meet the needs of today’s learners, fearless leadership is required to support and empower the adults who work with these learners. Anchored in research, Fearless Conversations is a guide to recognizing and using strategies that encourage staff to work at their full potential, build trust, and strengthen collegiality. Strong, courageous, focused, collaborative leadership is a win-win approach for all stakeholders. Readers will find • interviews and case studies to illustrate effective practice • strategies to help them move from traditional methodologies toward stronger transformational leadership • vignettes and examples to ignite additional thinking to facilitate achievement for all students Written for aspiring, new, and experienced school leaders, this is a must-read for anyone who wants practical strategies that they can use immediately to build a culture of learning and improve academic achievement for all students. "Fearless Conversations School Leaders Have to Have is a professional "toolbox" for aspiring as well as experienced school administrators and teacher leaders or any educator who cares about meeting the needs of today’s student learner. How to address difficult issues in a leadership role, for example, is presented in a realistic perspective through real-life examples, vignettes, and personal reflections that come not only from the authors themselves but also from school leaders currently in the field. These proven strategies bring credibility to the authors’ work. It is a practical guide that can help school leaders stay on the forefront of success in their schools." Linda Pincham, Associate Professor Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL "This book is timely, practical, and clearly anchored in the rich leadership and coaching experiences of the writers. This book is a must read for all leaders and aspiring leaders at the building and central office level. This book will also be useful at the university level where new leaders are being prepared and inspired." Lynda C. Wood, Ed.D, Retired Superintendent Southfield Public School District, Southfield, MI

Step out of Your Comfort Zone and Really Help Kids To meet the needs of today's learners, fearless leadership is required to support and empower the adults who work with these learners. Written to help leaders build a culture of learning and improve academic achievement for all students, this guide to recognizing and using strategies will encourage staff to work at their full potential, build trust, and strengthen collegiality. Readers will find - interviews and case studies to illustrate effective practice - strategies to help them move from traditional methodologies toward stronger transformational leadership - examples to ignite additional thinking to facilitate achievement for all students

Fully revised and updated—the national bestselling communication skills guide that will help you achieve personal and professional success one conversation at a time. The master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Susan Scott wants you to succeed. To do that, she explains, you must transform everyday conversations at work and at home with effective ways to get your message across—and get what you want. In this guide, which includes a workbook and The Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations, Scott teaches you how to: • Overcome barriers to meaningful communication • Expand and enrich relationships with colleagues, friends, and family • Increase clarity and improve understanding • Handle strong emotions—on both sides of the table • Connect with colleagues, customers and family at a deep level Includes a Foreword by Ken Blanchard, the bestselling co-author of The One Minute Manager

When people share their stories and ask their questions, something beautiful happens. Relationships deepen, and people begin to see God at work in their lives, and the lives of others. But how do "deep" conversations begin? Through grappling questions and respectful discussion. That's what "Fearless Conversation" Adult Sunday School Curriculum is designed to do?build relationships through authentic conversation. Looking to the Bible for the truth, "Fearless Conversation" guides participants through genuine discussion that digs deep into what God has to say. This easy-to-lead, low prep curriculum is saturated with Bible content and will: Help people get to know God and each other better by exploring "wondering" questions.Encourage people to look to the Bible and seek answers to their biggest questions.Foster participation so everyone is a valuable part of the dialogue. People want to talk about their faith. Give them the opportunity to openly share their stories, ask their questions, and connect with others in a safe environment. You?ll be amazed at what can happen. This Leader Guide gives leaders all the lessons, notes, and Bible background, plus additional tips and resources for the first 13 weeks of the Fearless Conversation curriculum. "Fearless Conversation" features a 2-year Scope and Sequence and will work for any size group. The second 13-week title, How Can We Be Fully Faithful When Were Fully Flawed?, releases 9/16/2014. Subsequent titles will be released quarterly. You can start with any volume you choose!

This book examines some of the most important challenges facing administrators and other professionals in PreK-12 schools today: safety and security, hiring and evaluating members of the faculty and staff, dealing with students’ academic and behavioral challenges, assessing student performance, responding to disengaged or overly engaged parents, and handling external pressures from the community. It also explores ideas for how to design the types of school our students will need in the future and cope with the realities of trying to develop these schools in a difficult educational environment. Preferring practical advice over unsupported hypotheses and adopting clear, instructive language rather than educational jargon, the authors draw upon their own experience as well as some of the best research currently being conducted in the field of educational leadership. The book is suitable for self-study, workshops, education courses, and in-serve programs. The target audience is current and prospective PreK-12 administrators, teachers, student teachers, and staff.

What does it take to have fearless schools? It starts with psychological safety-students, teachers, and leaders who know that mistakes are the source of learning, not shame or embarrassment. In order for great learning to take place, we first must build the trust and resilience needed to produce fearless students, teachers, and leaders-and ultimately create fearless schools. "If we are truly going to make schools inviting places for all students to come to and flourish, then the status quo, the 'normal, ' is not good enough. To build the trust, the collegiality, the aspirational expectations among educators for this to happen-we need to be fearless. Doug Reeves outlines the conditions for such fearlessness: not tolerating mediocrity, confronting reality over wishful thinking, listening and candor, and resilience and learning together from errors. Written with passion, this book invites you to develop the courage to create schools that are fearless such that all (educators and students) are improving, aspiring, and are part of a learning organization." -John Hattie, Emeritus Laureate Professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education; Chair, Board of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership "In Fearless Schools, Dr. Reeves tackles an urgent issue facing our children and the staff members who work with them. Fear of the virus, fear of change, and even fear of interacting with others will create a critical need to address these fears, reduce anxiety, and generally tend to the social and emotional health of children and staff." -Chris Lee Nicastro, PhD, former Commissioner of Education, State of Missouri

Schools need bold, fearless, and innovative leadership more than ever, but school leaders have been back on their heels for at least the past two years and have allowed others to hijack our narrative, something we ought to be directing. We now find ourselves intimidated by the loudest parents, the most partisan school boards, the most over-the-top media figures, and the most cynical politicians. Sadly, we’ve had to consistently play defense while the heroic work of our teachers, administrators and staff members has been largely ignored and certainly unappreciated. The national teacher shortage should surprise no one. Lack of support, lousy pay, and a casual disregard for the value of our teachers has left current and potential teachers discouraged and uninspired. We need to stand up for our folks, demonstrate boldness, recapture the message, encourage the beaten down, and embolden those who genuinely care about the future of our kids!

Do you seek a feedback process that can be tailored to equip leaders to accomplish their professional goals? Do you need a practical guide for mining stakeholder feedback and framing it in ways that make leaders hungry for the insights? Are you tired of being constrained by cookie-cutter 360-degree feedback tools used in organizations, tools that can be tone deaf to the underlying emotions? Do you wish you could uncover the fears which inhibit the change a leader needs, so they can design actions for future growth? Then Fearless Feedback is your answer Among many things, this book provides: A practical seven-step framework on how to structure stakeholder feedback for leaders; An actionable guide with specific dos and don'ts;Intriguing dialogue between coach, leader, and stakeholder (articulating the unspoken thoughts and underlying emotions); and Tested techniques, tips, tools, and templates

When people share their stories and ask their questions, something beautiful happens. Relationships deepen, and people begin to see God at work in their lives, and the lives of others. But how do "deep" conversations begin? Through grappling questions and respectful discussion. That's what Fearless Conversation Adult Sunday School Curriculum is designed to do--build relationships through authentic conversation. Looking to the Bible for the truth, Fearless Conversation guides participants through genuine discussion that digs deep into what God has to say. This easy-to-lead, low prep curriculum is saturated with Bible content and will: Help people get to know God and each other better by exploring "wondering" questions. Encourage people to look to the Bible and seek answers to their biggest questions. Foster participation so everyone is a valuable part of the dialogue. People want to talk about their faith. Give them the opportunity to openly share their stories, ask their questions, and connect with others in a safe environment. You'll be amazed at what can happen. This Leader Guide gives leaders all the lessons, notes, and Bible background, plus additional tips and resources for the first 13 weeks of the Fearless Conversation curriculum. Fearless Conversation features a 2-year Scope and Sequence and will work for any size group. The first 13-week title, Why is Jesus so Radical?, releases 6/2/2014. Subsequent titles will be released quarterly. You can start with any volume you choose!

"We can't do that in our school district." "I don't have time to add that to my curriculum." "We're fighting against impossible odds with these students." Sound familiar? School improvement can often feel like a losing battle, but it doesn't have to be. In this fully revised and updated second edition of The Learning Leader, Douglas B. Reeves helps leadership teams go beyond excuses to capitalize on their strengths, reduce their weaknesses, and reset their mindset and priorities to achieve unprecedented success. A critical key is recognizing student achievement as more than just a set of test scores. Reeves asserts that when leaders focus exclusively on results, they fail to measure and understand the importance of their own actions. He offers an alternative—the Leadership for Learning Framework, which helps leaders identify and distinguish among four different types of educators and provide more effective, tailored support to - "Lucky" educators, who achieve high results but don't understand how their actions influence achievement. - "Losing" educators, who achieve low results yet keep doing the same thing, expecting different outcomes. - "Learning" educators, who have not yet achieved the desired results but are working their way toward excellence. - "Leading" educators, who achieve high results and understand how their actions influence their success. Reeves stresses that effective leadership is neither a unitary skill nor a solitary activity. The Learning Leader helps leaders reconceptualize their roles in the school improvement process and motivate themselves and their colleagues to keep working to better serve their students.