New Thinking on What Makes a Leader

By Lynn Olson

As policymakers turn their attention to finding effective leaders for the nation's schools, they face as many questions as answers: What is the nature of leadership? How should principals and superintendents be trained? And are the jobs—as they are now structured—too much for any one person?

"There's a sort of unarticulated, growing understanding that we've conceived the job of school leader wrong for contemporary needs and conditions, and that it needs to be changed," said Thomas Sobol, an education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a former New York state schools chief.

In recent months, a broad consensus has emerged across education, governmental, and philanthropic groups on an urgent need to address what many see as a scarcity of strong leadership in public education, at both the school and district levels. ( "Policy Focus Converges on Leadership," ...