Read Reviews

Peggy Brookins

Jill Harrison Berg’s, Leading in Sync, is a gift to the profession. Not only has she provided a memorable metaphor of how leadership within systems work in sync, but also the tools to use in order to achieve the pivotal teacher/leader understanding by all. The background research includes the essential element of how trust is built, showing that effective co-performance of leadership requires teachers and principals to be on the same page about the vision they are trying to create, their mutual understanding of the complementary roles each will play to reach that vision, the trust required to make it work and its impact on student learning, school culture, and organizational improvement.

Deborah Meier

Until we take teachers seriously we will not produce a seriously well-educated citizenry. Berg lays the case before us in ways that we can understand and act upon.

Susan Moore Johnson

Teachers’ expertise has long been trapped inside the separate classrooms of the egg-crate school. Efforts to liberate what teachers know and can do have repeatedly fallen short for fear that as teachers gain influence, principals must lose it. But the potential for leadership in schools is not zero-sum and a miserly standoff between teachers and principals will only shortchange students. In her insightful, no-nonsense playbook for teachers and administrators, Jill Harrison Berg captures the promise of schoolwide leadership and deftly explains how educators can all lead, if only they’ll do it in sync.

K. C. Knudson

It is generally understood that we must transform our schools to provide our students with the capacity to thrive in the dynamic and complex world of today and tomorrow. It is also generally understood that we must leverage the expertise of teachers to both transform our schools and redesign learning experiences for students. But how do we best do that? I believe that Jill Harrison Berg has provided us with the answer to that question. Jill Harrison Berg has provided us with a resource that clearly defines when teacher leadership works and when it does not. This book provides the clarity and tools that support the framing, growth, and development of a leadership relationship that works between teacher leader and principal. By clarifying when teacher leadership works and calling out the critical aspects of the relationship between the teacher leader and principal, and by providing the tools necessary to support the development of effective teacher leadership models within our own schools, educators can leverage this book to leverage change in their districts, schools, and classrooms.

Ann Lieberman

At last we have a book that has courageously reconfigured the very meaning of leadership in a school. Teaching us how to build trust, create, organize and support the influences for school improvement, we learn about the critical bonds needed between principals and teachers as leaders. We come to understand how to improve student learning, while building a collaborative culture in a school. This is a must read for all those who need an important partner in the process of building this culture. Jill Harrison Berg is it!

Dennis Shirley

"Leading in Sync" is a breakthrough masterpiece, helping all teacher leaders and their principals to find new ways of collaborating to solving the hitherto most 'wicked problems' of educational challenge. Chock full of concrete examples grounded in nitty-gritty, everyday realities, this is a book that will be treasured by educators at all levels and in all contexts. The writing is lively and the solutions are realistic and persuasive. This is a must-read for every serious change leader."

Dana Schon

When Iowa passed legislation to create a formalized system of teacher leadership in every district, we recognized the need for professional learning and support in order to realize a successful implementation. We established a statewide team representing key stakeholder groups to coordinate, organize, plan, and deliver professional learning. In researching best practice and tools that would facilitate this work, we came across Jill’s resources—aside from not finding anything else like them, what made them so unique is that they literally moved implementation forward. They helped districts to operationalize and concretize roles and responsibilities, to navigate communication dynamics, to deepen understanding of shared and distributed leadership, and to build trust—all key foundational principles of a successful system of teacher leadership. My role is specific to supporting administrators, and these resources helped me to serve my role more effectively.

Geneviève DeBose Akinnagbe, NBCT

Jill Harrison Berg's thoughtful and data-driven work is sure to transform what leadership looks like in schools. Teachers, principals, and students will benefit from the tools, stories, and lessons highlighted in Leading in Sync.

I look forward to reading Leading in Sync in my role as a New York City Peer Collaborative Teacher. Using the tools outlined in the book to help our principals and teachers get on the same page will transform what learning looks like in our school, for students and adults.

If principals and teacher leaders are not on the same page student learning is sure to suffer. Leading in Sync will help the educators in a school create a vision of shared leadership that supports the learning of all of the students and adults in the building.

Tonia Holmes-Sutton, Ed.D., NBCT

Leading In Sync: Teacher Leaders and Principals Working Together for Student Learning by Jill Harrison Berg offers the promise of powerful, significant impact on teaching and learning through a shared commitment by teacher leaders and principals to lead and learn together. Dr. Berg provides meaningful and practical tools and activities that foster collective impact through shared responsibility and shared leadership. Leading in Sync is an essential book read to inform and guide the leadership development of teams of teacher leaders and principals committed to being the difference for students.

Nasue Nishida

Jill Harrison Berg unpacks the complexity of teacher leadership and the value of shared leadership among teachers and administrators in her book “Leading In Sync”. This book provides manageable steps, realistic ideas and expert guidance for creating systems of shared leadership relevant to all education leaders, specifically teacher leaders and building administrators.

Jesse Solomon

Dr. Berg's contribution to the field is critical. First, it is organic - it builds on the actual work and obstacles faced by real teachers and principals and schools every day. Second, it hones in on a longstanding implementation challenge: getting everyone on the same page. For too long, too many talented and skilled educators have been been working hard but often at cross purposes of those around them. And for too long, too many educators have left their classrooms, schools and even the profession out of frustration with this type of structural misalignment. This book holds up those issues, and begins to describe a pathway toward a more coherent and aligned approach.

Betty Hale

If heeded, the resources in “Leading in Sync” will help our nation stop squandering two major forces for increased outcomes for all students: Principals and Teachers leading together.

Marya Levenson

This book focuses on the critically important issue of how principals and teacher leaders can work together for student learning. As reformers have begun to acknowledge that teachers must be involved in any successful educational reform, Jill Berg offers tools and insights in Leading in Sync so that principals will be able to support the important work of teacher leaders.

From the foreword…

Andy Hargreaves

Jill Harrison Berg has been a teacher and helped to prepare great numbers of teacher leaders herself. She is no innocent when it comes to the issues. She’s heard all the objections from administrators, unions and teachers themselves. But from the research, including her own on what motivates teachers and keeps them going in the job, and through years of working with teacher leaders in courses and consultancies, often with very challenging schools, Jill has learned why teacher leadership matters, how it can make all teachers become better, and how this helps all students in our schools.

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