'"Strategic Leadership and Educational Improvement" contains essays that will be invaluable to those seeking succinct guides to the subtle elements of school improvement' - Tim Brighouse, "Times Educational Supplement". 'This is a wonderful book. The editors have managed to balance powerful authors in an impressive survey in current thinking about education. It should certainly rate multiple copies in most libraries' - "School Leadership & Management".This volume focuses on strategic leadership, the impact of external and internal factors on organizational leadership, and how effective educational leaders manage the competing demands of autonomy and accountability. The book deals with the challenges of managing the boundaries between educational organizations and their external contexts, and reconciling environmental expectations and internal priorities. The editors believe that strategic understanding and involvement should be a central concern for all organization members and that, in order to be effective, strategic planning needs the commitment and ownership of all staff, not just senior managers.The book covers: political, social and ideological contexts; governance and links with external stakeholders; marketing; organizational collaboration, competition, partnership; external/internal culture, and internal structures; strategic leadership and managing change; and, organizational effectiveness, accountability and evaluation. This book is suitable for providers and students in higher educational institutions postgraduate level courses in educational management and leadership development provision for Headteachers induction programmes, NPQH and LPSH. It is also suitable for use on short courses and for practitioners occupying or aspiring to leadership roles in schools, colleges and other educational organizations.