Introduction
Globally, school leadership has become a renewed area of focus in education policy agendas over the past two decades. There may be many reasons for this, including competition between national education systems, competition within national education systems and the deepening of performativity cultures. Furthermore, the introduction or strengthening of education accountability mechanisms, the introduction of leadership preparation and development agencies, and the increased recognition of the role played by school leaders and schools in connecting schools and students to the ‘real world’ have all contributed to this renewed focus. The shifting socio-political, economic, technological and cultural landscape within which school leaders, globally and in national contexts , do their jobs reveals a complexity associated with the practice of school leadership, a complexity that underlines the need for ongoing improvement to the quality of education, both for individual growth and for economic prosperity for national societies (UNESCO, 2016).
School leadership is arguably the second most important element in the success or failure of schools. As a fundamental link between the classroom, a school and a nation’s education system, school leaders and school leadership are positioned as having a vital role in improving school level efficiency and in transforming the fortunes of national education systems through schooling. Increasingly, school leaders and schooling are positioned as custodians and drivers of social and economic change in society through education. Not only does this positioning highlight the need for quality school leaders to be in place, it also highlights the need for the work of existing school leaders to be evaluated and understood—as the nature and type of demands currently placed on them are expected to intensify. As the role of a school leader evolves “from a traditional managerial role to a performance-based distributed leadership role” (Mancinelli & Acker-Hocevar, 2017, p. 9), it is to be expected that there will be far more and greater pressures and demands associated with their role, thus requiring them to be more reflective, relational , contextual, socially and environmentally aware and entrepreneurial . These themes will be developed and discussed throughout the book.
School leaders do not work in fixed educational policy contexts . Rather, they operate in dynamic educational environments that require them to lead change at the school level and to connect their schools with opportunities in the wider environment within which they are located and operate. In doing so, school leaders execute a mediating function between an improvement framework operating at the level of a school and wider educational reforms directed externally from government and elsewhere. This mediating function, and its importance, was highlighted by Acker-Hocevar, Hyle, Ivory and McClellan (2015) who noted, “School leadership is not simply putting prescribed solutions into action, but a constant encounter with quandaries that demand thinking and problem solving, responding, and adjusting to the situations at hand” (p. 5). This observation is quite apt and prompts us to consider the role school leaders occupy in an era of relentless change underpinned by performativity agendas. School leaders are also operating in an evolving context of simultaneous and significant life changing events, many of which are outside their control and many of which have the potential to shape or determine their own performance as well as the performance of their schools. The changing external environment of schools is characterised by:
- increased global competition among educational systems
- social, political and civil unrest
- multiple and competing policies requiring simultaneous implementation
- frameworks for increased accountability
- frameworks for increased and improved performance
- the quality and adequacy of infrastructure and resources
- the threat and impact of natural disasters
- growing national/international economic uncertainty
Added to these are changes associated with the internal environment of schooling, such as the quality and availability of teachers and aspiring school leaders, the quality of teaching and learning, pupil behaviour, the quality of support received from and by parents, the location and size of a school, the size and gender make-up of staff and student bodies as well as the degree of support/challenge received from the school board. One realises therefore that a school leader is a vital bridge that links a school’s internal with its external environment as well as a conduit that mediates issues in these environments.
No two schools are identical, no matter how alike or how closely located they may be or how many broad characteristics they may have in common. Importantly, no two school leaders are the same, no matter the similarity of their job roles and/or experiences. What works in one context, therefore, may not work in another; or what works for a leader in one context may not work for the same leader in another context . As a practice, however, school leadership—whether enacted in small or large schools; religious or secular schools; state funded or privately funded schools; or whether enacted in religious or secular countries; or in developed or developing countries—will have some shared characteristics, and school leaders, regardless of gender, school location or degree of engagement with policy development and implementation, will have some shared understandings of these characteristics.
For national education systems across the world to flourish and deliver the promised benefits of education, they need school leaders who possess a strong degree of personal agency as well as an acute awareness of multiple contexts and how these (can) impact and influence schools and educational outcomes. Leaders who are aware of what is happening both inside and outside their schools, locally and internationally, are more likely to be proactive in seizing opportunities and in providing staff and students with the knowledge and equipping them with the skills necessary for this and future decades. Furthermore, a school leader’s sense of self, their personal and professional limitations, and their purpose and that of their school are equally important.
Schools are central to any country achieving or fulfilling national development goals, and school leaders, policy-makers and parents are well aware of this. The role of education in contributing to individual social mobility and national economic prosperity is an important one, heralded by political actors, driven or led by school leaders, and delivered by teachers . The relationship between school leaders and teachers is an crucial one, to which we will return in due course. Suffice it to say that for education to yield benefits to society and individuals, “effective leadership from governments , from school principals and from all other sectors of an educational system must be in place, and in sync” (Miller, 2016, p. 1).
As national governments continue to seek out and pursue ways to develop their education systems, and to make education more responsive to the needs of citizens and to the demands of society , expectations for schools, school leaders and school leadership have also intensified. Globally, as education continues its steady move up political agendas, more and more it is being heralded as a major factor, if not the most important factor, in unlocking social and economic prosperity. Based on this new thrust, the school leader has enormous responsibility for the success of individuals and for a national society , as both they and their work have come to symbolise individual, social and national economic change . Concomitantly, school leaders across the world must assert themselves as “role-makers” and “innovators” (Mancinelli & Acker-Hocevar, 2017, p. 10), being equipped with new skills necessary for their own flourishing and for deepening and strengthening their leadership in educational environments which have become largely characterised by competition, compliance, command, control and change. This is important since the work of school leaders is crucial for meeting the learning needs of students, harnessing economies of scale from limited educational resources, building communities of practice and partnerships , building capacity in teachers , and bringing innovation to schools, classrooms and beyond.
As pointed out earlier, expectations surrounding what school leaders are to achieve have changed. Nevertheless, the distribution of tasks, along with the level and type of training, the quality and type of support available and the kinds of incentives received, has not always changed to reflect this. In nearly all countries, although in some more than others, school leaders have been on the receiving end of much criticism from politicians and state agencies, as well as impatience from staff, parents and pupils. Miller (2016) noted that “not all principals are excellent or even good” (p. 1), a view supported by the reports of several education inspectorates which, in both developed and developing countries, as well as in the results of international surveys and studies such as the Global Monitoring Report of Education for All, and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Not only does this raise concerns about the quality of education in several countries, it also presents a significant challenge for national education systems. The Global Monitoring Report of Education for All (2005) reported that leadership and management is an area of weakness in several countries, and in many cases, students were not properly equi...