Leverage Leadership: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools

Schools across the country are keeping an alarming secret: Principals spend over 90% of their time focused on tasks that have little to do with improving student achievement.  In Leverage Leadership (Jossey-Bass, July 2012, ISBN: 978-1-118-13860-1, $34.95 / Paper / also available as an e-book) PaulBambrick-Santoyo meticulously shows the steps that great school leaders need to take to better use their time so that they can transform lackluster (or even good schools) into great ones.

After years of running high-performing schools, training over 2,500 school leaders worldwide and studying the habits of other successful school leaders, Bambrick-Santoyo developed seven crucial levers that great principals can employ to drive student achievement.

“The success these leaders enjoy stems not from some mystic, evasive circumstance, but from practical, specific decisions that any leader at any school can apply,” says Bambrick-Santoyo.

Leverage Leadership deconstructs the myths behind the work of the modern-day principal, such as, “change is slow: teacher development takes 10 years, there is a ‘principal personality,’ and culture comes before instruction…or instruction before culture,” by offering concrete guidelines for a new paradign in school leadership.  Additionally, the book’s companion DVD includes 30 video clips of top-tier leaders in action, offering a path for any leader who wants to replicate his results.

Claude Brizard, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools said, “Bambrick’s clear, detailed blueprint will give both emerging and veteran leaders new tools for success. When it comes to school leadership, we’ve all been looking for guidance: now we have it.”

This marks Bambrick- Santoyo’s second book.   His first, Driven by Data, which details how schools can use focused assessments to vastly improve student performance, is widely regarded as a must-read for educators committed to making data-driven instruction a reality in their schools.

It’s up to the leaders to set the tone of a school and prioritize student achievement, and Leverage Leadership can help any school leader begin to implement impactful positive change.