The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

I just finished The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins. Admittedly I was unfamiliar with this book before someone gave it to me recently. While I can't say the writing is thrilling or exciting in any way, I can tell you it has significant value for administrators moving to a new position at either a new school or to a new position within the current school. Some of the best content covers strategies for assessing employees and planning personnel strategy during your first 90 days on the job. Other valuable content deals with assessing the overall situation and state of affairs at the organization, establishing credibility and building relationships at the new organization, and feeling out the new boss.

While this book was written for the business world, it has relevance for the world of educational administration, too. Interestingly, 90 days is about one semester. Therefore, in terms of the strategies in Watkins' book, the first-semester timeline, as well as the plan laid out in the book, makes a lot of sense to me.