Servant Leadership and Distributed Leader Application

Leadership Annotated Bib

Culver, Mary K. (2009). Applying Servant Leadership in Today's Schools. Eye on Education:

Larchmont, NY. This text focuses on how an educator or member of educational administration can use methodologies first utilized in business practices to become a more effective leader. The text is broken down into scenarios wherein an administrator and/or a teacher had a behavioral or some other issue inside the classroom. The thesis then becomes that by reading the given scenarios, the reader can learn by the examples provided.

The book teaches the reader how to apply the scenarios in the text to real world situations. By doing so, the reader can then apply their own real life situations and try to glean lessons which can be equally applied to the rest of their educational experience.

Hannigan, John B. (2008). Leadership in Higher Education: an Investigation of Servant

Leadership as a Predictor of College Performance. Capella. This document is a discussion of research conducted by Capella University into the correlation between servant leadership and academic and community performance in higher education. During the research, teachers would divide students into groups of leaders and those who are led. Logically, what they were able to determine was that those who had more experience being trained in the technique of servant leadership, were better prepared to engage themselves in similar capacities as they continued on with their education.

This document is useful because it shows quantitative and qualitative research concerning servant leadership and its usefulness, as well as its effects. Leadership is something of a subjective topic and so obtaining quantified data can be very useful for researchers.

Harris, Alma. (2009). Distributed Leadership: Different Perspectives. Springer: New York, NY.

In this book, Almas Harris has collected a multitude of essays wherein the various authors show their belief and/or disbelief in the distributed leadership system. More so than this, Harris's book is a call to action for educators. She makes the claim that from an international standpoint, education has fallen in quality and the only way to revive it is through dramatic restructuring of educational programs within the school system.

The text is so pertinent because though the book as a whole supports the distributed leadership method, Harris and colleagues also accept the fact that the program has limitations. To this end, Harris enumerates the limitations of distributed leadership and then expounds on why she believes it to be the best method.

Leithwood, Kenneth A. And Blair Mascall (2009). Distributed Leadership According to the Evidence. Routledge: New York, NY. In this text, the authors use research methods to determine the quantified validity of the distributed leadership method. The researchers in this text postulate that with the current crisis of education and economics in the country, distributed leadership is the most effective method of ensuring behavior and follow-through in the classroom.

The text allows the reader to see what the particular benefits and demerits are of certain leadership practices both in the United States and internationally. It also explores the nature of this leadership technique as well as the consequences of using this method. This is all important information to have when doing research.

Lowham, Elizabeth (2007). Too Many Cooks? Distributed Leadership in State Brownfields

Remediation. University: UoColorodo. This is a document containing quantified research regarding the distributed leadership method. Specifically, the document researches the different steps towards larger policy making decisions and implementations of programs. The researcher examined the way distributed leadership affected students in the classroom and determined its effectiveness.

What the researchers finally determined was that it is important for a group of people concerned with education and students create policy. However, Elizabeth Lowham also makes it clear that there is such a thing as too much input and too many insights It is better to limit program decisions to a small committee of expert people rather than give everyone, including people who may or may not be knowledgeable, a say.

McBeth, Mark (2008). The Distributed Leadership Toolbox: Essential Practices for Successful

Schools. Corwin: London, UK. This text explains to the reader the basic components for distributed leadership method and how to bets input this method into the education of their various schools. Before either an individual or a school can begin a program of any formula, whether it be distributed leadership or not, it is important to be completely understanding of the leadership method.

McBeth advocates making an initial analysis of the current distribution of leadership in the school that you are working in. From here, the functionality and success of the current practices can be determined. It is only through understanding how distribution is does organically or innately, according to McBeth that furthering the program can be useful.

Nichols, Joe D. (2011). Teachers as Servant Leaders. Rowman and Littlefield: Lanham, MD.

According to the author of this book, teachers by their very definition are servant leaders.

A servant leader is one who while in the process of being a leader also acts in a capacity where they assist others. What makes this text so compelling is that it is written with the perspective of the current educational moment. Right now, with the economy in such a precarious circumstance, many of the nation's educational facilities are finding themselves underfunded and their budgets cut. The text keeps this in mind and tries to provide some balm to the frustration of the nation's teachers.