Leading Educational Systems and Schools in Times of Disruption and Exponential Change: A Call for Courage, Commitment and Collaboration

Schools and school systems are increasingly impacted by global disruptions and rapid changes that create unprecedented challenges and opportunities for their leaders and educators. School leaders need to prepare students for faster changes than ever before, to learn for jobs that have not yet been created and use pedagogically-informed technologies to transform the ways in which teachers, students. and parents relate and collaborate. Current and future technological transformations provide opportunities for transformative change through the potential for connectivity and networking for educators locally, nationally and internationally. This book provides an analysis of the impact of disruptive environments on education. It closely examines and synthesizes international literature on how educational systems in a number of countries are successfully transforming educational delivery processes to better prepare students for an increasingly disrupted world. This invaluable text will prove indispensable for educational professionals and researchers engaged in informing and transforming policy making, leadership training and development, and quality learning and pedagogy in schools.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Disruptive environments: leadership challenges and opportunities  Chapter 2. Disruptive environments impact people's lives and works  Chapter 3. Traditional leadership approaches can be a liability in times of disruption.  Chapter 4. Societal support for ethical, moral and authentic leadership  Chapter 5. Successful Leadership within Technologically Smart Environments  Chapter 6. Schools as vital communities of learning  Chapter 7. Shaping the future of education  Chapter 8. Re-energising education: re-energising teachers' professional judgements   Chapter 9. Lessons from successful international educational transformations  Chapter 10. Preparing today's students for tomorrow's world  Chapter 11. Navigating the future of learning: the role of smart technologies  Chapter 12. Transforming education and schooling: where to from here?

About the Author :
Patrick Duignan is Emeritus Professor at Australian Catholic University, Australia. He has been involved in education for over 50 years as a teacher, as a deputy principal and principal, and in a number of positions from lecturer to professor and Dean in tertiary education institutions.

Review :
Leading educational systems and schools in times of disruption and exponential change offers deep insight into the complex, metrics-dominated and radically evolving contexts in which leaders are currently immersed. Professor Duignan cautions us about pursuing old solutions to new challenges and constructs a compelling case for how leaders might adopt radically new approaches to their work. While the scale of this challenge can seem overwhelming, Patrick Duignan reveals the breakthrough opportunities it presents. He draws on the wisdom of authentic leadership research to guide contemporary leaders towards human-centred and values-guided clarity, when their moral compass might otherwise be spinning wildly in these times of unparalleled change. Professor Duignan’s insights apply to leadership generically but he applies them in depth to educational contexts. This is a ground-breaking work of hope, purpose, progress and inspiration for all educational leaders. In this book Patrick Duignan provides a comprehensively-researched account of the need for change in the way we approach educational leadership. His challenge is for us to act with urgency despite complexity and ambiguity, and to withstand the pull of gravity dragging us back to a safer, more orderly version of schooling. What education systems do, how they do it, and the way in which they are led, must change or else those education systems will become irrelevant. His firm belief in the role of ethics, human-centred learning, leadership that is authentic, and positive cultures provides the stability that will help us to navigate the unknown. Duignan provides an essential resource for educational leaders that is designed not to spook or preach but to stimulate and motivate. Education has always been a dynamic enterprise within which the challenges of change have been a constant. However, in this deeply considered, thoroughly researched and finely nuanced work, Patrick Duignan applies considerable voltage to our understanding of the dynamism urging educational leaders to positively and urgently embrace the new narratives brought about by disruption and exponential change. He describes a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity and poses questions about the relevance of a model of schooling in which flexibility, agility and adaptability struggle to find a place. More than ever educational leaders are called upon as reformers and people of authenticity to collectively and collaboratively inspire in others new ways of working and responding to the unknowns of the future. Such leadership involves all those engaged in the educational enterprise – teachers, principals, and system leaders and this book will challenge each. It is timely, comprehensive, provocative and essential reading as we each build up “the basket of goods” required in pursuing educational excellence. As an educational leader engaged in substantial reform initiatives in our system and schools, I recommend this book to other educators and educational leaders contemplating reform as collectively we strive to prepare our students for the future. Patrick Duignan is renowned for his contribution to the field of authentic and ethical leadership. In this new book he takes a monumental leap, skilfully connecting the timeless character qualities of great leadership with the contemporary VUCA world of constant disruption and exponential change, including rapid technological advances in and into every sphere of life. Well researched across a wide range of areas, the book itself models the multi- and inter-disciplinary approach needed to lead contemporary schools, systems, and organisations. This leadership needs to be human-centred, authentic and values-based, agile and open to learning, ‘ecologically’ collaborative and connected, and future-focused. Models of schooling and approaches to learning also need to change radically and the book presents many examples of how this might be. Participants in our leadership programs at the Association of Independent Schools (AIS) Leadership Centre are profoundly influenced by the concepts advanced in Duignan’s earlier works. This new book will doubtless become a staple in our future programs. “This book provides important insights into what we as leaders confront as we work to steer our schools positively through the tangled and unpredictable landscape toward into what we know will be disrupted futures. Drawing on his wealth of personal experience and scholarship Duignan pulls together and applies cutting-edge research and thought from business and education to suggest new and exciting ways through which leaders can challenge orthodoxy, avoid obsolescence and create positive order even within uncertainly. I’ve been a fan of Duignan’s books for years – they inevitably challenge us to take a different angle, but while staying absolutely morally anchored. In my opinion, Leading educational systems and schools in times of disruption and exponential change is his best yet and should be required reading for any school leader seriously interested in shaping a better future for their students and our societies.”