Everyday Courage for School Leaders
- Cathy Lassiter - Consultant and Author
Develop and enhance Leadership Courage to lead every day with equity and excellence!
Have you ever wondered how or where you find the inner strength and determination to stand up and lead fellow administrators, teachers, or students to meet ever-changing expectations?
Courage is a “must have” for effective leadership. Everyday Courage guides readers to develop Leadership Courage from within and become exceptional and resilient. In addition to expanding instructional leadership, practical elements and features include:
• How to Take Action: make specific plans to activate moral courage, intellectual courage, empathetic courage, and disciplined courage
• Daily Practices: exercises in accountability, trust, and risk-taking maintain courageous leadership for equity, excellence, and inclusion
• Courage Quotient: assess and consider your areas of strength and opportunities for growth through deliberate practice
Whether you are new to leadership or seeking revitalization, Cathy Lassiter’s experience in all levels of educational management will focus you toward leading from a courageous mindset.
"Leadership is about fostering growth, building capacity, and collaboratively working with stakeholders to create new ideas - this takes a great deal of courage. Cathy Lassiter creates a pathway for leaders to develop that courage, and shows them how to do it with empathy. Everyday Courage for School Leaders is an outstanding read for anyone new to leadership and those who need to revitalize their thinking."
- Peter DeWitt, Author/Consultant
"A great resource to support leaders as they revise, reflect, and reassure staff, students, and community of the possibilities through their leadership as we embrace the courage to accomplish goals to achieve success."
- Brenda Yoho, Director of Educational Support Programs
Supplements
"Leadership is about fostering growth, building capacity, and collaboratively working with stakeholders to create new ideas - this takes a great deal of courage. Cathy Lassiter creates a pathway for leaders to develop that courage, and shows them how to do it with empathy. Everyday Courage for School Leaders is an outstanding read for anyone new to leadership and those who need to revitalize their thinking."
"A great resource to support leaders as they revise priorities, reflect on their mission , and reassure staff, students, and community. Through their courageous leadership we can accomplish our learning goals and achieve success."
"There has never been a time where we need more courage from educational leaders than right now. The ESSA provides new opportunities to rethink school improvement and accountability, but only the courageous need apply. Principals must be courageous lead learners willing to collaboratively inquire and develop themselves and their staff. This book tells you why and how to do this. It is a must read and a must do!"
"Dr. Lassiter has drawn upon her own experience as a principal, district administrator and national educational consultant to write a book that is relevant to the immediate needs of school leaders. She clearly knows the many challenges, obstacles, stresses, and opportunities that school leaders face daily and provides clear guidelines for the development of courageous, effective leadership that anyone can learn who wants to learn. Her work is grounded in research, best practices, her extensive experience, and examples of courage from principals around the country, and includes a call to action for school leaders to take smart risks! This book should be on every superintendent’s reading list for every principal, assistant principal, and district leader. It provides a guiding light to show the way to success and provides hope to all those school leaders who work so hard daily to improve the quality of teaching and learning for all."
"It is often said, 'how goes the principal, goes the school.' In Dr. Lassiter’s second book, Everyday Courage for School Leaders, the critical role of the school principal is the focus. With inspiring examples and deeply rooted research, Lassiter demonstrates the importance of everyday courage in leading a school.
"In interviews for school administration, one often must demonstrate skills such as decision-making, communication, instructional knowledge and organizational skills. What goes unsaid is the critical need to be able to apply courage to the decisions, communication and organization in the best interests of students. Lassiter reminds her readers that schools are for students and courageous leaders often must make decisions about adults and their actions that are not popular or supported. Everyday courage cannot be learned in a degree program. It must be nurtured and developed through trust, accountability and risk taking. These 'three cups of courage' empower leadership and form the basis of this encouraging and thoughtfully written book for school leaders."
"This material is comprehensive, extensive, focused, and practical. The personal anecdotes of real principals helped to illustrate the essentials of the chapters’ main themes. This book certainly makes a strong case to point out the importance of leadership courage. School leaders need this type of thinking more now than ever before and have little in the literature from which to draw. This book will fill that void."
