The Brilliance Imperative – Leadership Strategies for Being Brilliant at Creating Brilliance

Simon Dunford
Design and layout by Adrian Cheah

The Brilliance Imperative

Foreword

Like you all, I am a busy person and, to be honest, whilst I like a good bit of research-based reading, I seldom have the time or the inclination to do it as often as I might like.

Work-life, for me, already means a lot of reading; once that is over, I have little capacity left in my head to cram much more in. I do, however, undertake my thinking in a much less formal, less structured way, focusing on the premise of, “What can I do and learn that will actually help me get better at what I do?”.

The Brilliance Imperative

This book should only take approximately an hour or so of your time to read.
It is intended that this book be a time-efficient, easy read with easily accessed main themes that promote further thinking and questioning. Ideally, you will find some areas that you would like to delve deeper into at a later stage. Included are lots of questions to assist you in exploring these areas yourself and a couple of practical activities that you might like to try.

Part book, part manual and part checklist, I hope to have achieved something that is quickly digestible but which also sparks new thinking and reflections that you can then run with and develop further.

The Brilliance Imperative

---------------------------------------------------------
Simon Dunford
2021, Dumond Learning Oü, Tallinn, Estonia
Softcover. 15.24 cm x 22.86 cm, 108 pages
Language: English
Illustrated throughout
ISBN 978-9916-4-0451-5

Available on Amazon

---------------------------------------------------------
About the Author

Simon is an experienced educator with over 25 years of experience; the majority of those years being in Leadership and Advisory roles.

He has been fortunate to have worked in many countries and regions worldwide, including the United Kingdom, the Caribbean and South East Asia.

Simon has worked in and with schools, specialist provisions, local education authorities and ministries of education, and with both non-profit organisations and private companies. This variety of different contexts has given him a vast range of experiences and insights to draw upon.

Simon’s interests and specialisms include Leadership and Management, Inclusion and Special Educational Needs, and Educational Transformation.

Simon holds a master’s degree in Education Leadership and Behaviour Management, and he is proud to say he learns something new each day.

Simon would describe himself as a Practical, Pragmatic Optimist who believes that there is always something that an individual can do to drive the progression, development and learning of the individual and the collective. He views leaving any situation without having a next step in mind or developing some new understanding or insight as a wasted opportunity to transform yourself and others.

In writing this book, Simon hopes there is something, even just one small nugget, for you to take away, to do, and perhaps reflect on, and that the words, concepts and ideas lead to positive, direct actions to support change and support Brilliance!

---------------------------------------------------------

Simon’s book is a wonderfully accessible, easy-to-read, common-sense exposé of leadership in general and school leadership in particular. He uses a chatty, engaging style to cut to the essence of what it means to be a leader, dodging the conventional jargon and demystifying the sophistication others have burdened the term ‘leadership’ with.

By describing leadership in terms of its focus on individual and team performance, Simon has surfaced the imperative need for self-leadership to drive the leadership of others. Ignoring any temptation to become embroiled in semantics or vague wanderings of fancy, he stresses the distinction between a title and a role and distils his many years of experience, deep thought and discussion into simple, blindingly-obvious descriptions of what effective leaders do.

This is a refreshing re-look at leadership, recommended for all who profess, aspire or are obliged to be leaders.

– Greg Flattley
International education advisor, consultant and school principal
Author: A Practical Manual for Principals
[Insight Publications, Melbourne 2010]
Creator-administrator: www.principalmanual.com