Building Leadership Capacity on a Budget

Since September 2002, business leaders and educators have been examining the differences in business and educational leadership in a professional development partnership, titled, The Academy for Leadership in Education (ALE). This organization was created as a program to encourage the study of leadership and develop the capacity for mentoring new school leaders. The collaboration is centered in a local university, and continues to include surrounding school systems and businesses. The Academy for Leadership in Education, a collaboration begun by the active involvement of local leaders in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, derives its professional development objectives from the literature on transformational leadership (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). Characteristics of transformational leaders are: (a) idealized influence-attributed, (b) idealized influence behavior, (c) inspirational motivation, (d) intellectual stimulation, and (e) individualized consideration. The focus on these criteria continues to be part of the process of preparing new leaders in the ALE. The Academy for Leadership in Education provides a model of how several rural school systems coordinated resources to provide an investment in the quality of school leadership at a time when the standards are high and the financial support for sustained, quality professional development is dwindling. Through ALE, over 150 educators have participated in high quality professional development. (Contains 1 table.)