Dr Megan Crawford is Professor and Director of Plymouth Institute of Education and was formerly Reader in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and Deputy Head of the Faculty. . Her research encompasses principal preparation, teacher development, and emotion and leadership. She teaches on Masters and Doctoral programme and is especially interested in the relationship between theory and practice. Megan is a National Leader of Governance in England, and has been a governor at six primary and secondary schools. She is currently Chair of Governors of an outstanding secondary school which she has been with since it was a green field. She is on the Executive of the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS www.belmas.org.uk.), and was its Chair from 2009-11 Megan has worked internationally in diverse places including Canada, Japan, and Iceland. Megan’s previous book on emotion and leadership was published in 2009.
…The book is framed to illuminate how headteachers experience, and talk about, emotion and meaning in their daily interactions, and sets out to understand how emotion impacts on their leadership.' (author's introduction) Understanding the close relationship between leadership and emotion is essential for school leaders. This book discusses why emotion is such a powerful component of leadership, and how better knowledge of emotion and leadership can sustain leaders. The author examines the part leaders, and especially headteachers, play in creating, modifying, and sustaining the emotional coherence of the whole school. The book contains examples of how school leaders experience emotion and meaning in their daily interactions and through stories, the reader can engage with how school climate depends on the personal emotional quality of the leader, and his/her interface with other social relationships in the school. The book discusses personality and life history, dealing with difficult people and situations, shame and loss, and the future of leadership. All of these are shown through practical examples - primary and secondary case studies as well as through school leaders' reflections on the influence of their life history on leadership and emotion. This book is for practicing educational leaders and managers, tutors, and students in graduate courses, education courses, and in programs such as the National Professional Qualification for Headship, its equivalent for Children's centers, and other national programs in educational leadership and management.
