Big Wins, Small Steps
How to Lead For and With Creativity
- Ronald A. Beghetto - University of Connecticut
Don’t sink your school’s creativity—encourage it to set sail!
Do today’s schools stifle creativity? Some think so. Whether or not that assessment is fair, educational leaders need to innovate, implement creative leadership and cultivate possibility thinking.
This book is the definitive resource for making creativity a schoolwide core value. Introducing the groundbreaking Small Steps Approach to Instructional Leadership (SAIL) framework, Ronald A. Beghetto shows how big wins come from small, completely doable steps, and all creativity needs is a little nudge from you, the instructional leader. Content includes:
- “Creative leader checklists” summarizing actionable points in each chapter.
- The keys to removing the most difficult creative barriers
- How to sit with uncertainty instead of letting it derail innovation efforts
- When to “flow like water”, and when to “stand like a mountain” as you re-focus your school towards creativity
Implementing these principles will produce positive effects that resonate in every aspect of your school.
Watch this video from Ron Beghetto on "Responding to Uncertainty."
Check out the PCR Interview for Big Wins, Small Steps.
"Ron Beghetto's engaging work on creativity has profound implications for schools, and for the staff and students within them."
Larry Rosenstock, CEO
High Tech High
“Creativity has become the holy-grail in education. Beghetto presents an authoritative, accessible, and unpretentious pathway toward creative leadership. Insightful, practical, and based on solid research, not popular myth.”
Yong Zhao, Author of World Class Learners
"Creativity is needed to negotiate a complex world. Big Wins, Small Steps invites educators to teach creativity by first practicing deliberate creativity one small step at a time."
Beth Miller, Executive Director
Creative Education Foundation
"In a world in which change comes at alarmingly faster rates each year (or so it would seem), it is refreshing to have a source that encourages us to take small steps within the context of our current efforts in instructional leadership which will lead to greater gains. This book is a great companion for any educational leader who wishes to model creative leadership within their building."
"Big Wins, Small Steps gives Principals, Teachers, & Instructional Leaders a framework to reference when looking out how to increase the creative spirit in our schools, and what steps we can do to support our students."
"I suggest that all school leaders consider this book as Ron Beghetto's engaging work on creativity has profound implications for schools, and for the staff and students within them."
"At a time when creativity has become the holy-grail in education, Beghetto presents an authoritative, accessible, and unpretentious pathway toward creative leadership and leadership for creativity. Insightful, practical, and based on solid research, not popular myth.”
"Creativity is a process. It is an intrinsic skill -- the key skill needed to negotiate a complex world. Big Wins, Small Steps invites educators to teach creativity by first practicing deliberate creativity. This practical guide will cultivate your creativity one small step at a time."
