Leadership for Innovation at Two Schools of Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership Development Across Time, Space, and Roles

Abstract

This study examines leadership and organizational change in two schools of education that accomplished significant curricular innovations. Qualitative case study methods are used to address the conditions in which these academic innovations flourished, the nature of leadership for innovation, and how faculty and staff can encourage innovation and organizational change. The author finds that leadership activity was broadly distributed among faculty and staff as the innovations were developing and describes how leadership for innovation occurred. Leadership for innovation was only loosely linked to formal hierarchies or conventional positions of leadership. The author also discusses why the ideas that inspired the innovations resonated, and the organizational contexts in which the innovations happened.

Author

• Thomas Kecskemethy, American Academy of Political and Social Science