The new work of educational leaders : changing leadership practice in an era of school reform

In The New Work of Educational Leaders, Peter Gronn provides a new framework for understanding leadership practice. The work of leaders will increasingly be shaped by three overriding but contradictory themes: design; distribution; and disengagement. These are the architecture of school and educational leadership. Designer-leadership is the use of mandatory standards of assessment and accreditation for school leaders, such as the National Qualification for Headship (NPQH) in the United Kingdom and the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards in the United States. Distributed patterns of leadership have developed in response to the intensification of school leaders' work under policy regimes of site-based and school self-management. Disengagement describes a culture of abstention, in which school systems anticipate leadership succession problems, such as projected shortages and recurring recruitment difficulties.