"Becoming a principal involves more than merely applying for a job. It means taking part in a long voyage toward becoming the most effective leader you can become."

Author, educator, and leader John C. Daresh leads you on that journey in a unique and important book that combines self-exploration and career planning in a powerful new way.

Now you can look at every facet of the most important career decision you can make. You?ll ask yourself if you really want to be a principal . . . you?ll discover what the job truly entails and how it matches up with your real career goals and personal plans.

By examining a series of critical issues, this book can help you make that all-important decision by showing you what it?s really like to be a principal on a day-to-day basis. Issues include:

• Differing views of administration
• The role of superintendents and district personnel
• Visions of leadership
• Conflict as part of the job
• The frustrations of leadership
• What it means to be in charge
• Options for principal professional development

What It Means to Be a Principal is a work of insight and action -- a challenging real-world framework that will help you make one of the most important decisions of your career.

John C. Daresh has worked as a professional educator for more than 30 years in public schools in Iowa and Illinois and in universities across the country, and has served as a consultant to school districts, state departments of education, and universities. Currently he serves as a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Foundations at the University of Texas at El Paso. Daresh has been a frequent contributor to the literature on principalship, and is the author of the best-seller Beginning the Principalship from Corwin Press.