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How Teams Work

A Playbook for Distributing Leadership

By: Cathy Lassiter, Douglas Fisher, Toni Faddis, Nancy Frey

Illustrations by Taryl Hansen

In an educational landscape that is experiencing rapid changes and challenges, How Teams Work: A Playbook for Distributing Leadership is a critical companion for those aspiring to craft effective and resilient teams within schools.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781071948743
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2024
Page Count: 128
Publication date: April 16, 2024

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Description

Foster Trust, Accountability and Engagement in Your Teams

Creating strong, cohesive teams is an art, and How Teams Work: A Playbook for Distributing Leadership is the essential guide for school leaders looking to master this craft. This interactive playbook doesn't just advise but actively equips leaders with the tools they need to foster trust, accountability, and engagement in their teams.

School leaders today face a critical mandate: to empower, engage, and work in concert with their teams to foster a positive and productive school environment. How Teams Work doesn't offer mere platitudes—it offers practical strategies and tools, with concept maps, learning intentions, team challenges, reflection prompts and more. Information is organized into six modules exploring:

The foundational role leaders play in team dynamics
Strategies to bring together and mobilize effective leadership teams
Methods to forge and maintain team unity and collaboration
How to build and maintain trust and respect within teams
Practical tools for maximizing team productivity and decision-making
Guidelines on reflective leadership to assess and improve team performance

How Teams Work isn't only a resource; it's a roadmap to sustainable success, illuminating the path to nurturing leadership at every level. In an age where the turnover of educators is high and the need for sustained, collective school improvement efforts is urgent, leveraging the power of teams isn't just advantageous—it's essential.

Author(s)

Cathy Lassiter

Cathy Lassiter, Ed.D., is an international consultant with over 35 years of combined experience as a public school teacher, principal, central office administrator, and consultant. Her areas of expertise are in Visible Learning, Teacher Clarity, and all aspects of school leadership. Before this role, she held various positions including Executive Director of Middle Schools and Senior Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Staff Development. She also was a successful middle school principal and was named Virginia's Middle School Principal of the Year. Cathy has served as an adjunct professor at The George Washington University, teaching graduate courses in educational leadership.

Douglas Fisher

Douglas Fisher is professor and chair of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Previously, Doug was an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is a credentialed English teacher and administrator in California. In 2022, he was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame by the Literacy Research Association. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design, as well as books such as The Teacher Clarity Playbook 2/e, Your Introduction to PLC+, The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Credibility, The Teaching Reading Playbook, and Welcome to Teaching!.

Toni Faddis

Toni Faddis joined Corwin as a full-time professional learning consultant in 2021. Before that, she was a bilingual teacher in elementary and middles schools as well as a Reading Recovery specialist before becoming a principal and principal coach in San Diego, California. In addition, Toni served as the Director of Equity, Access, and Leadership Development at the district level. Toni holds teaching and administrative services credentials in California and earned her doctoral degree in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University.

Toni is the co-author of Collaborating Through Collective Efficacy Cycles: Ensuring All Students and Teachers Succeed, PLC+ for Instructional Leaders, How Teams Work, and The Ethical Line, as well as numerous professional articles about adolescent literacy.

Nancy Frey

Nancy Frey is a Professor in Educational Leadership at San Diego State and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. She is a credentialed special educator, reading specialist, and administrator in California. She is a member of the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Her published titles include The Illustrated Guide to Visible Learning, Welcome to Teaching Multilingual Learners, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers, and RIGOR Unveiled: A Video-Enhanced Flipbook to Promote Teacher Expertise in Relationship Building, Instruction, Goals, Organization, and Relevance.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Module 1: Leading Teams is the Work of Leaders

Module 2: Activating Leadership Teams

Module 3: Creating Leadership Team Cohesion

Module 4: Conveying Collective Leadership Team Credibility

Module 5: Leveraging Processes, Protocols, and Tools for Leadership Teams

Module 6: Thinking Evaluatively as Leadership Teams

A Call to Action: Rethinking Leadership Teams

Reviews

This sums up my thinking about leading teams: Observation, conversation and evaluation are the heartbeats of building and sustaining leadership teams!

Timothy Blackwell
Principal, Arden elementary School, Columbia, SC

This is a MUST read for anyone who takes on the role of leadership in education. Fisher and Frey make the compelling case, with a sense of urgency, for a new way of leading schools through expanded, empowered, and engaged school leadership teams. They argue that doing anything less is irresponsible and fraught with consequences! How Teams Work provides a perfect synergism of reflection, insight, and learning that leads to sustained, competent, cohesive, and credible leadership teams.

Tyler Gilbert
Academic Coach, Calwa Elementary School, Fresno Unified School District

This book goes beyond basic personality tips to generate shared leadership opportunities. Creating schools with shared leadership teams must have successful processes and protocols to create teams who live with purpose, speaking in unison.

Amy Klung
Principal, Bluewater Elementary, Niceville, FL

How Teams Work makes it clear that distributive leadership is not about delegating responsibilities or lightening the proverbial workload of the principal. Instead, it is an opportunity to empower and engage teachers and other staff members as decision-makers and leaders in their own right. After reading this publication, I am convinced that leadership teams are some of our most underutilized and undervalued resources.

Quantina Haggwood
Executive Director of Schools, Richland District One, Columbia SC

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Related Professional Learning

Related Signature Services

Onboarding New Teachers

Related Resources

Introduction to How Teams Work [Book Excerpt]
Leading Teams is the Work of Leaders, How Teams Work Module 1 [Book Excerpt]

Other Titles in: Leadership | Organizational Tools | Collaboration & Team Building