Teachers as servant leaders /

Taking Robert K. Greenleaf's philosophy of leader as servant as a starting point, Nichols (Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ.) paints a compelling image of the values and beliefs of an exemplary teacher who leads by serving students, parents, colleagues, administrators, and the community--the teacher as servant leader. This image of the teacher necessarily goes far beyond the No Child Left Behind era emphasis on test scores and rote learning that has dominated discourse about the teaching profession during the first decade of the 21st century. Drawing upon the work of such iconic thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, George Counts, Howard Gardner, and Alfie Kohn, Greenleaf envisions a teacher who tends to the cognitive, psychological, and socio-emotional dimensions of students with great passion and who stimulates interest and enthusiasm in learning. Leading by serving parents and community occurs within an interconnected, ecological system paradigm instead of a deficit paradigm. Leadership theory is presented, but mainly consists of descriptions of traits, including attitudes and values. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduate collections and above. J. House Western Illinois University