In Turnaround Leadership, Michael Fullan—an internationally recognized leader on educational reform—expands the definition of organizational turnaround and shows how leaders can turn even the worst situation into an opportunity to shake-up and rejuvenate their schools. Indeed he goes beyond turnaround schools to show how entire systems can be transformed. Fullan examines the dynamics of what makes societies—and education systems—healthy or sick. He identifies the positive things turnaround schools do to get off the critical list, and explores what it takes to motivate large numbers of people to go beyond short-term solutions in order to achieve fundamental, sustainable reform. Ultimately, Turnaround Leadership focuses on the critical role of leadership—not the Lone Ranger leader who rides into town and saves a single school, but leaders whose very actions change the systems they work in.

This book is a volume in the Jossey-Bass Leadership Library in Education—a series designed to meet the demand for new ideas and insights about leadership in schools.