'This important new book identifies the teachable characteristics of collaborative leadership, and offers sound guidance about how to develop them in yourself and others. I believe this candid and practical work can have a profoundly positive impact on all who study it' - Bob Barkley, Executive Director (Retired) Ohio Education Association, Worthington, Ohio 'Readers will find in Hank Rubin's work both a useful theoretical framework and very practical advice for creating and sustaining collaboratives that foster improved student learning. This book provides insights for anyone engaged in collaborative efforts to improve student achievement-whether you are working at the school, local community, state, or national level' - Judy Wurtzel, Executive Director, Learning First Alliance Washington, D.C Collaborative Leadership is a book for teachers, educational leaders, staff members, university professors, and students preparing for any of these positions. It is a simple book intended to help leaders lead, teachers teach, and intellectuals think more effectively with and about collaboration.Author Hank Rubin explores what it takes to form and focus the collaborative relationships necessary to accomplish important public missions, particularly education. Essentially this book has two parts. Chapter 1-4 looks at the context, the reasons and complexities of collaboration from a number of perspectives, and pose a variety of arguments for doing collaboration. Chapters 5-9 attempt to respond to this argument with explorations of how to do collaboration. Collaborative Leadership is geared toward the familiar workaday world of people in the big and small systems that touch the lives of children from schools, to districts, to families.

Table of Contents

Foreword - Martin J. Blank Preface and Overview About the Author 1. Most of Us Begin By Missing the Point Cutting Stone Raising Bars The Importance of Powerlessness The Position of Mission 2. Pushing String Complexity and Cynicism Beyond Toolboxes Collaboration and Competition 3. Collaboration and Relationship Management Who Is a Collaborative Leader? What Distinguishes Collaborative Leaders From Other Types of Leaders? A Word on Institutional Collaboration Relationships That Bind Working Definitions Factors Affecting Collaboration Time and Formality Itinerant Collaborations Sustained Collaborations Veracity and Tenacity Conclusion: Collaborative Leaders Succeed With and Through People 4. Educators as Collaborative Leaders Why Public Education? The Case for Teachers as Collaborative Leaders: Creating a Learning Environment, One Relationship at a Time A Teacher's Review Teaching Collaboration for Teaching's Public Purpose The Easy Case for Principals and Superintendents as Collaborative Leaders 5. Constructing Models The Purpose of Collaboration Turning Arrows The What The Why The How 6. Collaboration's Life Cycle Overview The 12 Phases of Collaboration's Life Cycle A Checklist A Rudimentary Framework 7. The Dimensions of Collaborative Leadership Of Sums and Parts Twenty-Four Dimensions of Effective Collaborations 8. A Framework for Future Study Connecting the Principles A Challenge for Readers A Special Challenge for Researchers, Scholars, Evaluators, and Trainers 9. Seven Nuggets A Practioner's Postscript Seven Principles of Effective Collaborative Leadership References Index

Author Biography

Hank Rubin is president of the nonprofit Institute for Collaborative Leadership, former distinguished visiting scholar at George Mason University, and dean-in-residence at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. He was previously joint dean of education at The University of South Dakota and South Dakota State University. With corporate, political, business, and nonprofit experience, Rubin is a nationally respected collaborative leader, educational spokesperson, and children's advocate. Rubin's work reflects the vision of one who sees the world through the eyes of a broad cross-section of those who influence the national, regional, and local partnerships needed to make sure that all children can succeed. He has taught seventh- and eighth-grade students, run three nonprofit organizations and created several others, directed and taught in the Midwest's largest urban graduate school of public (government and nonprofit) administration, served as vice president for sales and marketing in an international manufacturing firm, served as associate vice president for institutional advancement in a large urban univer sity, taught graduate students in education and business manage ment, run for-and held-public office, and started and managed his own consulting firm before founding the nonprofit Institute for Collaborative Leadership. Rubin was an early researcher and leader in the field of nonprofit leadership. He was co-convener of the Clarion Initiative (a series of symposia that began at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and produced a framework that has guided nonprofit trainers, educators, and researchers since the 1980s). With more than 20 publications on topics including school reform, educational goal setting, public ethics, philanthropy, and nonprofit management, Rubin is a respected consultant, speaker, and advocate for innovative and collaborative approaches to leadership, training, and public education. He served as Ohio's first associate superintendent for students, families, and communities and was a founding member of both the Ohio Learning First Alliance and the Chicago Panel on Public School Policy and Finance. Rubin earned his PhD from Northwestern University and his MA and BA from the University of Chicago with early coursework at the State University of New York at Geneseo.