Diversity in the principalship: The impact of the formative years

This paper presents the key findings of a recent study into the relationship between first time principals' formative years and their early experiences in the leadership role. The family, school and religion all had a significant influence in shaping basic values and beliefs, and the beliefs and values in turn exercised considerable influence on how new principals carried out their roles. It was evident that the socialization agencies of principals' respective families, workplaces and schools all played a noticeable role in the conception of their ‘self’ and their ‘leadership character’. The study also illustrates the impact of early experiences on the educators even before they took up positions of leadership, and throws light on their aspirations to become leaders and the strategies they employed to work their way up the career ladder. The paper explains how early life experiences, when combined with the historical, economic and cultural context in Singapore, affected the thoughts, attitudes, and actions of the novice principals. Finally, the paper examines some of the things that were perceived by the new principals as either supporting or hindering their practice, and at how they were affected. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Framing the role of the school leader in OECD documents: A critical analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the OECD framing of the role of the school leader in a series of its publications, drawing on role theory, using critical analysis of how school leaders’ roles are represented in a body of OECD texts. The research findings provide insight into the multi-faceted portrayal of the ‘ideal’ role of school leadership as framed by the OECD. The findings also show the dominance of classic scientific management ideas in the framing of the role of school leadership by the OECD. The study demonstrates how adopting role theory can provide a deeper understanding of how OECD discursive actions redraw new roles for those working in education.     

Four School Leadership Teams Define Their Roles Within Organizational and Political Structures to Improve Student Learning

A shift in educational policy and practice is to involve teachers in school reform. Many reform programs require school leadership teams for involving teachers, yet few studies have examined how teachers take up such new roles and responsibilities. Using the dual conceptual lenses of open-systems and micropolitics, we investigate how four middle school teams engaged with their colleagues to construct an identity, assume leadership roles, and situate themselves in their schools. We argue that the influence of training enabled teams to assume four roles: communicators, staff developers, problem-solvers, and leaders of change. The findings suggest that teams and educational leaders need to recognize the influence that existing organizational structures have on teams and the actions they are able to take. The results also indicate that knowledge of the organizational structure as well as micropolitical dynamics can serve as leverage points for constructing their roles and initiating change.     

Empowering teacher leadership: a cross-country study

ABSTRACT

The contextual, purpose-driven challenges facing schools and school systems across the world call for creative and innovative responses to revitalize school practices. The process of revitalization will require new thinking, new mindsets within an adaptive school culture and new leadership roles (formal and informal). Often the perception of leadership held within a school is that it is the province of the principal; however, if we move from a top-down model of leadership we can ulitize the capacity of others within to lead the learning. To enable this to happen, teacher leaders need to work with agency and principals need to nurture and grow their formal and informal leadership roles within the school. For many teachers, the question is how they can establish and commit to leadership roles and responsibilities within the school community while remaining in a teaching position. This case study examined the practices of teachers as they experienced leadership across three cross-cultural contexts: Colombia, Canada and Australia. It presents exemplars of teacher leadership in action and provides images of teacher leadership as enacted in addition to an understanding of the factors that were important in supporting their leadership actions.     

An exploration of the validity and potential of adult ego development for enhancing understandings of school leadership

An adult ego development (AED) perspective accepts that the way adults interpret and interact in the social world can change during their life-span. This article seeks to analyse the validity and potential of AED for enhancing understandings of educational leadership practice and development. We analysed the AED literature and interviewed 16 individuals in senior leadership positions in the English school system. The interviews enabled them to explore the notion of AED and to reflect on their own sense-making capability and their experience of school leaders they considered to be in the different stages of AED. Educational leaders judged to be in the different AED stages were encountered by respondents to varying extents and were experienced and valued differently. Those considered to be in the later AED stages appeared to be more highly valued and their sense-making capabilities may have substantial value in the complex working environment of schools. The analyses showed that: AED has a considerable role in educational leadership practice; can inform the analysis of educational leadership practice and development; and has valuable explanatory power.     

The school leader’s role in school-based development

ABSTRACT

Background: While the school leader’s role is undoubtedly instrumental in school effectiveness, the specific influence of formal leadership on pupil learning is indirect and can be difficult to determine. Research findings suggest that school leaders can influence school organisation and pupil learning by acting catalytically, thus unlocking their schools’ existing potential. In school-based development, school leaders and their staff undergo a workplace development process, using school resources to contribute to it.

Purpose: This article explores the concept of leadership in school-based development, focusing on leading teacher learning processes in relation to pupil learning. The research problem is formulated in the following question: How is the school leader’s role enacted and experienced when enhancing teachers’ learning in school-based development? The intent of the study was to further the understanding of leadership in school-based development.

Sources of information and method: A qualitative interview study was conducted with teachers and leaders from three lower secondary schools, roughly 2 years after the schools participated in a formal school-based development project which was initiated by the Norwegian education authority. To present the findings based on the collected data, narrative texts were constructed.

Findings: The findings draw attention to the importance of leaders’ participation in the teacher learning processes of school-based development. The study highlights the importance of leaders building trust in their schools: development processes must be collegium-rooted with common goals for the whole school. The interplay of culture, structure and content is found to be necessary for successful school-based development. Furthermore, school leaders need to balance internal and external accountability, moving school practices towards local goals, which are constructed within national overall aims.

Conclusions: The study suggests that leaders require an overview of developmental processes to manage to support and progress development; leadership needs to be distributed. Further research on leaders’ learning in relation to school-based development can generate knowledge that serves as a thinking tool, thereby informing leaders’ actions in support of school-based development.     

Academic leadership and university reform-guided management changes in Finland

This article uses resource-dependence theory to analyse how academic mid-level leaders in Finnish universities respond to their changing post-reform management environments. The 2010 university reform and subsequent university-specific management reforms have created new positions and roles for academic leaders. By identifying critical resources, academic leaders recognise essential uncertainties and dependencies and design actions to ensure the continuity of their units’ academic functions. Mid-level academic leaders perceive internal and external uncertainties requiring different actions, reflecting their dual status and role. They use their new powers and respect academic values, while promoting their new management roles and competitive behaviour in academic functions. Academic leaders are intra-organisationally influential resource-dependent players. From the viewpoint of university reform implementation, therefore, it is important to know what they emphasise in their leadership role.     

Group coaching: a new way of constructing leadership identity?

This paper focuses on group coaching, one of the newer school leadership development approaches to recently emerge. Using a group-coaching methodology developed at the University of Oslo, we deconstruct the concept of leadership identity as it is reported in texts from students in the National Principal Programme. We suggest that leaders develop greater confidence in their leadership role through personal and contextual feedback from other leaders. We argue that bringing existing and aspiring school principals together in a target-oriented group-coaching process may have profound positive effect on leaders' context-based identity development.     

Change in a culture of collegiality and consensus-seeking: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The study aims to move beyond idealised and predominantly trait-based typologies of leadership and leadership roles and addresses collegial leaders’ practice of change in higher education. Collegial leaders at two research-intensive higher education institutions, who had received educational leadership training, were studied. In the study, we explored ordinary actions and change practices as a way of understanding emerging practices among collegial leaders. Five categories were identified that show how collegial leaders experience change, process change and organise the practice of change. The article also contributes a critical discussion on the notions of collegiality in a consensus-seeking context, which may be relevant for academic developers, policy makers, and researchers alike.     

Building Instructional Leaders’ Capacity to Deliver Constructive Feedback to Teachers

The aim of this action research study was to enhance the instructional leadership capacity of aspiring school leaders, through a practical learning experience. The participants observed classes, collected classroom-based data, prepared and delivered written constructive feedback to teachers. Findings suggest that aspiring school leaders need to develop a knowledge foundation related to quality instruction, teachers respond in a positive way and appreciate the feedback offered, constructive feedback has potential to guide teachers’ professional development, aspiring instructional leaders must be professional as they deliver feedback, and schools need to set up system for the effective delivery of constructive feedback to teachers so that teaching and learning excellence can be achieved.     

Fostering collaborative teacher learning: A typology of school leadership

Previous research indicates that supportive school leadership is a key condition of collaborative teacher learning. The purpose of this study was to develop a typology of how school leaders foster collaborative teacher learning. We adopted an integrative perspective on leadership by examining both learning-centred leadership and distributed leadership practices that are supportive of collaborative teacher learning. Data were gathered by means of interviews with ten school leaders and a questionnaire that was completed by 39 teachers from six secondary schools in the Netherlands. The aim of the interviews was to identify to what extent school leaders applied learning-centred leadership and distributed leadership practices. The questionnaire measured teachers' perceptions of the role of school leaders in teacher learning. As an outcome of this study, we constructed a typology that provides insights into how school leaders foster collaborative teacher learning. Four types of school leaders were distinguished: (a) integrators of teacher learning, (b) facilitators of teacher learning, (c) managers of teacher learning, and (d) managers of daily school practice. Our findings suggest that integration of learning-centred leadership and distributed leadership practices can help school leaders to support collaborative teacher learning.     

学校领导行为探论

学校领导行为是学校领导在决策、计划、传播、创新等职能活动中的领导与管理行为，对学校管理活动产生着重要的影响作用。学校领导行为具有示范教育性、灵活多样性、情感性、影响的深远性等特征；表现为系统取向和个人取向两种行为方式，12种基本领导行为。正确地选拔、考核和培养学校领导人员；在立法或行政监察规章上对学校领导运用职权的失误行为提供认定与处罚依据；形成并完善监督机制；营造道德教化和行政道德氛围，提高学校领导的道德修养，是防止学校领导在运用职权时出现滥用权力、渎职、权力无为等失误行为的行之有效的管理措施。     

School leadership for equity: lessons from the literature

Responding to Thrupp's [2003. “The School Leadership Literature in Managerialist Times: Exploring the Problem of Textual Apologism.” School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organisation 23 (2): 169] call for writers on school leadership to offer ‘analyses which provide more critical messages about social inequality and neoliberal and managerialist policies’ we use Foucault's [2000. “The Subject and Power.” In Michel Foucault: Power, edited by J. D. Faubion, 326–348. London: Penguin Books] theory of power to ask what lessons we might learn from the literature on school leadership for equity. We begin by offering a definition of neoliberalism; new managerialism; leadership and equity, with the aim of revealing the relationship between the macropolitical discourse of neoliberalism and the actions of school leaders in the micropolitical arena of schools. In so doing, we examine some of the literature on school leadership for equity that post-dates Thrupp's [2003. “The School Leadership Literature in Managerialist Times: Exploring the Problem of Textual Apologism.” School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organisation 23 (2): 149–172] analysis, seeking evidence of critical engagement with/resistance to neoliberal policy. We identify three approaches to leadership for equity that have been used to enhance equity in schools internationally: (i) critical reflection; (ii) the cultivation of a ‘common vision’ of equity and (iii) ‘transforming dialogue’. We consider if such initiatives avoid the hegemonic trap of neoliberalism, which captures and disarms would be opponents of new managerial policy. We conclude by arguing that, in spite of the dominance of neoliberalism, head teachers have the power to speak up, and speak out, against social injustice.     

Jordanian School Counselors’ Leadership Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to identify the degree to which Jordanian school counselors were seen by teachers and principals to possess and display leadership behaviors related to Bolman and Deal’s (1997) transformational ‘four framework approach’ to leadership. This was based on the view that such leadership would relate to counselors’ effectiveness in their roles. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of teachers and principals designed to assess counselor leadership on four key dimensions (i) structural leadership, (ii) human resources leadership, (iii) political leadership, and (iv) symbolic leadership. The results of the study suggest high levels of transformational leadership among Jordanian school counselors as perceived by both teachers and principals. Principals assessed the levels more highly than teachers, with a significant difference evident. The results also showed a significant difference based on geographic area of the participants, even though those from all areas rated counselor leadership quite highly.     

Observing Leadership Roles in Shared Decision Making: A Preliminary Analysis of Three Teams

Despite recent attention to shared decision making as an approach to school reform, relatively little research has been conducted on the topic, and much of that research has relied on interviews and field notes, rather than systematic observation of team functioning. This investigation integrated systematic observations and interviews. The purpose of this study was to describe the leadership behaviors exhibited by principals, team leaders, and other team members (teachers, parents, students). We defined leadership according to team member contributions to decisions (decision content, decision-making processes, and statement function, such as initiating topics and making suggestions). This investigation used a comparative case study approach to examine the shared decision-making teams from three schools during the teams' first year. Results revealed variability in leadership across the three teams. Two teams were characterized by positive group process procedures with active involvement from a number of team members. A third team was dominated by the building principal with minimal input from most team members. This team appeared to be less productive than the other two. These findings are viewed in relationship to prior research literature concerning the ambiguity of team members' roles, lack of clarity concerning the power of shared decision-making teams, and the impact of school vision. Suggestions are made for future research.     

学校变革中的“教师领导”

依靠源自学校内部的力量而进行的持久的学校革新,应该采取不同于以往的革新方式;促成教师基于角色转型和职业生活方式改变的专业力量的兴起,是决定学校变革成败的关键因素。教师领导这一新的角色被视为教师增权、促进变革和教师专业社群建设的必然选择。教师领导意味着教师要成为促进学生学业发展的领导者,要推动其他教师改进教育教学实践,促进学校内部领导群体的形成。教师领导的途径包括"参与"、"互动"和致力于生成"合作文化"。     

Power,agency and middle leadership in English primary schools

English primary schools are considered quasi‐collegial institutions within which staff communicate regularly and openly. The activities of staff, however, are bound by institutional norms and conditions and by societal expectations. Wider agendas of governmental control over the curriculum and external controls to ensure accountability and learning standards have influenced the development and purposes of middle leaders’ roles. This is a conceptual paper that explores issues around the agency of primary school middle leaders within a wider context of the political and educational agenda. Through a reconsideration of research conducted by one of the authors since the inception of the notion of ‘subject leaders’, we exemplify ways in which primary school middle leaders’ attitudes have developed and changed over the past 15 years. In this paper we identify attitudes to leadership, the influence of distributed leadership on primary school role‐holders and possible ways forward for middle leaders.     

Redesigning the role of deputy heads in Norwegian schools – tensions between control and autonomy?

A substantial body of research emphasises school leadership as a major influence on quality improvement in schools. Although numerous studies have identified the importance of the principal, fewer studies have examined the middle management level within schools, the deputy heads and assistant principals. Influenced by international trends, local education authorities in Norway have reorganised a traditional administrative deputy head role into a new role with expanded leadership responsibility for teacher staff and for performing instructional leadership. The primary objective of the present qualitative study is to provide additional insight into how deputy heads make sense of increased responsibility and power distribution as members of the leadership team and as leaders of the teachers in lower secondary schools. Drawing on focus group interviews and observations, the findings show that the reorganisation may open for a change from traditional administrative roles towards becoming learning-focused leaders. However, the findings also indicate that the shift can produce tensions between autonomy and control for the new leader role in the middle.