Leadership has traditionally been viewed as a process of social influence. This paper presents an alternative perspective, which views leadership as a social meaning-making process that occurs in groups of people who are engaged in some activity together. It uses the constructivist perspective to describe how people construct their own personal…

Beginning with a brief critique of the behavioral science approach to educational administration, this paper traces the roots of an alternative perspective through examination of the new sociology of education and critical social theory. Arguing then for the location of a critical practice of educational administration in a cultural analysis of…

School administrators can get a better idea of what their purpose is by examining, first, what schools achieve; second, how schools function; and, third, why they function. A school's production function (what it achieves) involves many specific functions, but they all are a product of the relationship between school inputs and outputs. Inputs…

This paper presents an exchange-theory view of school authority relations in order to identify patterns of coupling, or interdependencies, within school organizations and to analyze the potential for tighter coupling of administrative and teaching subsystems. The analysis proceeds from an argument that the social-exchange view of administrative…

Symbolic leadership and culture are the guiding concepts of nine selections presented in this 1987 yearbook. In part 1, "Organizational Perspectives on the Work of Leaders," Terrence E. Deal predicts that future educational organizations will depend upon leaders who have shaped cultural patterns from traditions, current realities, and…