Robin Sacks

Engineering leadership: Grounding leadership theory in engineers’ professional identities:

In recent years the US-based National Academy of Engineering and Engineers Canada have urged engineering educators to supplement technical coursework with multiple domains of professional skills development. One such domain is that of engineering leadership. While leadership education is beginning to be infused into some undergraduate engineering programs, it has not yet gained traction as a legitimate field of study. The legitimacy of the field depends on engineers recognizing themselves as members of a leadership profession. Our paper facilitates this process of recognition by grounding leadership theory in the professional experiences of engineers employed by four Canadian engineering-intensive firms. Our constant comparative analysis of qualitative data collected through nine focus groups and seven interviews suggests that engineers are largely resistant to dominant leadership paradigms drawn from other disciplines, but that they do, in fact lead in ways that blend key aspects of their identities with professionally recognized forms of influence. Our compound model of engineering leadership has practical and theoretical implications for engineers, leadership theorists and engineering educators.

Survive and Thrive: Leadership Distribution as a Strategy for Frequent Principal Turnover

On the topic of principal succession, there is often an implied sense of deliberation about the process. Yet in many of the schools where we work, changing principals is anything but an intentional process. The circumstances that prompt a principal to move from the job are diverse, and often unplanned. Another aspect which complicates this concerns the changing nature of leadership itself. School leaders are being asked to be transformational leaders and instructional leaders, and must also ensure that schools are both safe and supportive. This chapter focuses on the degree to which leaders influence the culture of the organization. Survey responses from teachers provided data for this study. Principal turnover is seen to be strongly correlated with school culture, classroom curriculum and instruction. The lack of relationship between principal turnover and student achievement was surprising. We worked to unpack the relationship between principal turnover and student achievement, through the mediating variables in this survey.