What School Leaders Can Learn from Military Leadership Development. - Review - book review

School Administrator, Jan, 1997 by William G. Keane

On first blush, it would seem that school leadership is (and perhaps should be) very different from military leadership.

But as the title of Leading People: What School Leaders Can Learn from Military Leadership Development implies, school leaders can profit from a look at what the military defines as leadership; what indicators are used to identity future military leaders; and what strategies are used to train military leaders.

Authors William B. Monahan and Edwin R. Smith, both professors of educational administration, compared the U.S. Army's version of leadership to the educational world. Most military leadership training was grounded in a historical tradition, focused on people, while the educational arena was described as complex, conflicting, politicized, and ill-defined. Military leaders were given frequent doses of reality-based leadership education (i.e., training), with practice, feedback, evaluation, and promotion focused on leading people. Educators, on the other hand, received more theoretical training that focused on the management of things; feedback was infrequent.

What can educational leaders learn from military leaders? Primary among the insights noted is for educators to re-connect with being people-focused.

(Leading People: What School Leaders Can Learn from Military Leadership Development by William G. Monahan and Edwin R. Smith, Scholastic Inc., 555 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10012, 1995, 175 pp., $24.95, softcover)