Summary

Developing Connective Leadership: Successes With Thinking Maps® discusses how Thinking Maps® are an efficient and eloquent language that can be used to explore and reveal ideas, thought processes, and intentions. By creating visual representations of thought, leaders create shared understandings and foster connections among staff. This detailed resource showcases the authors¿ case studies in schools where school leaders have used the Thinking Maps process to create strong collaborative bonds and facilitate shared leadership. As staff members collaborate to construct a shared frame of reference, they are empowered to execute and sustain the school¿s vision. As a common visual language for thinking, Thinking Maps implicitly and explicitly place the value of thinking, feeling, and having multiple frames of reference at the heart of the identity and practices of the school. Through the visual communication and construction of ideas, a shared landscape of learning develops¿one that the involvement of all members continually nurtures and the bond of this common language strengthens. While the settings vary, there are common themes that connect these stories¿clarity, efficiency, collaboration, empowerment, and sustainability. These themes seem to comprise the ground on which the leaders the authors spoke with built their practice. Each one of these themes represents a critical dimension of connective leadership. After an introduction to Thinking Maps in the preface and chapter 1 and a review of effective leadership theories and practices in chapter 2, the authors turn to how these themes emerge from leading and thinking connectively: from personal reflectiveness (chapter 3), to interpersonal interactions and coaching (chapter 4), to group dynamics (chapter 5), to schoolwide change processes (chapter 6), and, finally, to transformative processes at the school-system level (chapter 7). The epilogue brings readers back to the act of leading thinkers: engaging the capacity within each of us to connect the dots within ourselves and see more clearly the power of the collaborative drawing out of meaningful, connective thinking in maps.