Principles of Power. - Review - book review

School Administrator, May, 2001 by William G. Keane

Only the best education books can stimulate the reader's brain cells and pluck the heart strings as well. Principles of Power, one of the growing number of books about women in leadership, accomplishes this unusual feat.

Learning requires the organization of data into meaningful categories. For example, Stephen Covey describes seven habits of mind; Howard Gardner hypothesizes eight forms of intelligence. In this book, Cryss Brunner, assistant professor of educational administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attempts to categorize the essential skills for successful women superintendents within what anthropologist Carlos Castaneda described as the seven "principles of power" for training successful "spiritual warriors.

While possibly attractive to scholars, the intellectual superstructure may seem heavy reading for practitioners. Even so they should not be dissuaded from reading it. After three short chapters explaining (or defending) the warrior metaphor, the book looks at each of the principles as experienced by 12 practicing female superintendents. Brunner offers commentaries on these principles from 21 women superintendents.

Her book is neither dry nor theoretical. The chapters devoted to the principles and the subsequent details of the characteristics of "impeccable warrior practice" will make the reader squirm and lament the extra burdens women face in adjusting to the male cultural model of the superintendency.

At other times the reader will cheer the quiet courage and determination shown by these individuals. Marriages, children, self-esteem and sense of feminine identity are shown to be at-risk as these women cope with the challenges of school district leadership.

(Principles of Power: Women Superintendents and the Riddle of the Heart, by C. Cryss Brunner, State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12246, 2000, 200 pp. with index, $18.95 softcover)