Book Review: The Way of the Shepherd by Dr. Kevin Leman and Bill Pentak
The Way of the Shepherd by Dr. Kevin Leman and Bill Pentak, details a journey about a professor teaching a young student who is about to join the business world the seven principles on managing people. Each chapter focuses on a specific principle and uses an analogy between flocking sheep and managing a group of people. Each of the chapters focus on how to motivate your staff by creating a genuine relationship with them. Building relationships with those you are managing is the foundation to your success as a leader.
Know the Conditions of Your Flock: Leman and Pentak says, “To be a successful leader, you’re going to have to interact with people in much the same
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Leman and Pentak say, “know where you are going, get out in front, and keep your flock on the move.” You want to give your staff the freedom of movement, but you want to make sure they know where they are going. As the leader you want to allow your people to be creative and make mistakes. “When directing, use persuasion rather than coercion,” says Leman and Pentak.
The Rod
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“Protect: To stand in the gap and fight for your sheep, Correct: To approach discipline as a teaching opportunity, and Inspect: to regularly inquire about your people’s progress.” These three areas are vital for maintaining trust and loyalty among your people.
The Heart of the Shepherd: The last chapter focuses on the sacrifices that come with leadership. You must fully put your heart in being in a leadership role because it is hard work and must be a lifestyle you are dedicated to. Leman and Pentak say, “everyday you have to decide who is going to pay for your leadership – you or your people.” It is the sheep that will pay for poor leadership if a shepherd is not willing to maintain his flock. I highly recommend this book to anyone going into leadership or managing a group of people. This book serves as a great resource to those who wish to manage through personal relationships. Building relationships is something that I personally believe is one of the most important areas in being a leader in education. It is a privilege and an honor to be the leader of a school and with that comes tremendous responsibility and dedication to team
Ms. Hall has had many years of public education experience and higher education training in which to hone her leadership style and framework. She started her career as a teacher in the Kirkwood School District. She then served as an assistant elementary principal at both Ritenour and Pattonville School Districts before being selected to serve as the assistant superintendent of the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District in 2008. Throughout her career she continued to pursue her education as a means o...
The chapter “Clarify What’s Important to you” introduces several successful leaders and many praiseworthy values to me. Although each leader comes from different environments and possesses different characters, all of them keep their precious values in mind and persist in chasing their ideal lives. Even if each value can be interpreted by different meanings, they all lead encourage individuals to become better.
Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (2012). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin
Ramsey, R. (2006). Lead follow or get out of the way: How to be a more effective leader in
... leaders must, to use a time-worn phrase, “walk the talk” are essential to catalyzing that motivation.
For years, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, has been a staple in college, high school, and even middle school classes. The eloquent story follows a group of young boys stranded on a jungle island. They are left thousands of miles away from civilization and are left to survive by themselves. Throughout the story, many insights in leadership are seen through the power struggle between Ralph and Jack. Both have extremely different styles of leadership with varying levels of success. Lord of the Flies teaches me about leadership in the initial selection of the leader, how they solve problems, and how they motivate others.
In this book, the authors Tom Rath and Barry Conchie examine the question “What are the keys to being an effective leader?” To answer this question they had a team that reviewed data collected from Gallup polls. The data came from interviews from 20,000 senior leaders, over a million teams and more than fifty years of Gallup Polls of the most admired leaders in the world. The authors then had the team do a study of more than 10,000 followers to find out why they follow the influential leaders in their life.
Sendjaya, S. (2005). Leading with the heart: Servant leadership put other people’s needs, aspirations and interests above their own. Monash Business Review, 1(2). 34-41.
In every institution the type of leadership style is important for a successful environment. In order to establish a successful school environment to compete globally, the leader should comprehend the basic leadership theories and styles (Glickman et al., 2010). The cultures at schools are important to the success of the students and overall of the school, but also can be very difficult to establish and maintain without the proper leadership knowledge (Waite, 1995). In United States many schools could be place in the categories of conventional, congenial, or collegial, because the strategies used for their leadership (Glickman et al., 2010).The chosen school could be classified according to different criteria and could be determine in which area their leadership pertains more. In order to analyzed and classify the leadership, it was imperative to observed the way the leader make decisions, the approached with the stakeholders, how the instruction is delivered, and how they realized their job (Marshall, 2005). In this analysis will be identify the category that this school will be, the school climate, the type of supervision and leadership.
David T. Conley, Ph.D. a. The. Education - Leadership -. Vol. 66 No.
According to Sherman (2012), followers greatly contribute to the success of their leaders, and one must give their participation, support, acceptance of the challenge, open communication, trust and give their feedbacks. Behind every successful leader is a motivated and responsible follower.
Wynne, Edward A. & Co. The "Schools and Socialization" Educational Leadership (1979): 464-69.
The person who desires to develop his or her ability to influence others in leadership will benefit from reading this book. It offers many suggestions and tips for improving relationship skills. The discussion about “Five Ways You Want Others to Treat You” was very interesting. Maxwell stated, “The happiest people are those who have...
Thomas Sergiovanni (2015) describes three essential dimensions of leadership as “the heart, head, and hand of leadership.” The heart describes those characteristics within the school leader that reflect personal “beliefs, values, and dreams.” The head of leadership refers to the practice of teaching and educating. The hand of leadership reflects actions taken by school leaders with respect to management behaviors. (p. 5) Within these elements, there is room for personal choice in how leadership is practiced and it is incumbent on new principals to find an individual leadership style that responds to the uniqueness of each school.
As mentioned before, leadership styles take an important role in running a school. Unfortunately, many principals have not yet defined their leadership style and struggle to administrate their school. They are responsible not only of teachers and students, but of every employee in the school. They have the power to control all the resources available to improve and meet academic goals. Despite their power, principals need to identify appropriate leadership styles to succeed as