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Successful School Leadership – Chapter 1
Leithwood et al.
Purpose of Review
- To provide a state-of the-evidence description of what is already known about successful
leadership practices.
Two Types of Evidence
- Original empirical research using wide variety of methods – with special interest to those
studies from past decade.
- Review of research published in peer-reviewed journals.
State of Confusion
- So much concern about the quality of school, many are “peddling” their own views and
insights, so on with the confusing rhetoric:
1. Instructional leadership
2. Transformational leadership
3. Moral leadership
4. Constructivist leadership
5. Servant leadership
6. Cultural leadership
7. Primal leadership
Sources of Confusion
- Much of literature is concerned with leaders’ values, beliefs, skills, or knowledge of what
others think principals need (may be inferred from observation) rather than educational practice.
- Popular info source has been Goleman’s work with Emotional Intelligence.
- Important, but no one really knows what leaders think/feel except in how they translate those
feelings/beliefs into actions.
Teacher Leadership Anybody?
- Literature on true teacher leadership – and not delegated responsibility – is very sparse. Try
Katzenmeyer & Moller.
What Do We Know about Leadership Behaviors and Practices?
- Most visible examples of “unwarranted assumptions” and “links between internal states and
overt leadership” can be found in supervision/admin standards (GLACIE).
- Body of research on knowledge, skills, and dispositions of leaders has less to contribute in
support of those standards than we are led to believe.
- There is evidence about “effective leadership” practice and a growing body of evidence about
“teacher leadership.”
- Notions of teacher leadership and distributed leadership are more driven by philosophy and
democratic values than by evidence of pupil achievement.
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Distributed Leadership: Is More Better?
- Some claim that “more leadership is better” (Sergiovanni, 1999). Three positional flaws:
1. No support from empirical evidence: One study found that “total leadership” was
unrelated to student engagement.
2. What do we mean by leadership? Literature described valuable administrative tasks
and shared decision-making, but why do we call these distributed leadership and confuse
them with leadership?
3. If everyone is a leader – who is a follower?
Meaning of Leadership
- School reform is more effective in school that need it the least. Those schools have:
1. well-established processes, and
2. capacity
- Leadership is all about organizational improvement, and these schools are in the best place to
make those improvements.
- Leadership is about direction and influence:
- stability is the goal of management.
- improvement is the goal of leadership.
- Schools are often in a constant state of flux given changing leadership and thus lack of stability.
- Stability and change have synergistic relationship.
Significance of Research
- Where do we place our confidence in the evidence on “effective leadership”?
- Qualitative study
- Focused not only on quality of pupil learning but in conditions in schools.
- Conducted in individual school settings.
- Large-scale quantitative studies of overall leader effects
- Studies (1980-1998) suggest that combined direct and indirect effect of school
leadership on pupil outcomes are small, but educationally significant.
- Classroom factors explain more than a third of variation on pupil achievement.
- Large-scale quantitative studies of specific leadership practices
- Examining 21 leadership responsibilities (Marzano, Waters, & McNulty): a 10
percentile point increase in pupil test scores resulted from the work of an average
principal who demonstrated improvement in all 21 responsibilities.
- Large-scale quantitative studies on effects of leadership between school and pupil
engagement.
- Some evidence suggests that the relationship is positive in that school
engagement is a strong predictor of pupil engagement.
- Leadership succession research
- Unplanned principal succession is “one of the most common sources of schools
failing to progress in spite of what teachers might do.
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- Appointment and retention of principals is emerging as one of the most
important strategies for turning around struggling schools.
Chapter 4 – Roots of Successful Leadership Practice
What Does Research Say?
- Knowing what successful leaders do is important.
- Educational leadership research has thus far paid little attention to the “how and why” of their
practice.
- Claims about effectiveness of distributed leadership … everyone has be a good leader –
where is the literature support?
Role of Cognitive Process
- Leadership in schools has been concerned primarily with leaders’ cognitive processes.
How Environmental Factors Shape Practice
- Educational policies
- On-the-job leadership opportunities.
- Mentoring experiences
- Professional development initiatives
Mediation of “Inner Lives”
- Actual effects of environment factors are mediated by “inner lives” that act as an affective
interpretative screen.
- Thoughts and feelings
- Educational histories
- Professional identities
- Values and dispositions
*These are filters through which the world is viewed – emotional intelligences, perhaps.
Cognitive Characteristics of Successful Leaders
- Most of evidence has been collected in non-school contexts.
- Leadership has been associated with:
- Above average general intelligence
- Creative and divergent thinking
- Metacognitive skills
- Cognitive flexibility
- Creative and lateral thinking
- Creative problem-solving: the discovery of new solutions to unprecedented problems.
Problem-Solving: Expert v. Novice
- Expertise in associated with effective and efficient problem solving within a particular domain
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of activity.
- Degree of discretion and cognitive demands increased as their position in the organization
climbs the hierarchy.
- Experts:
- Excel mainly in their own domains.
- Perceive large meaningful patterns in their domains.
- Solve problems quickly with few errors.
- Have superior short and long term memories about matters within their own domains.
- Represent problems at deeper levels than novices.
- Spend more time than novices interpreting problems.
- Monitor their own thinking more than novices.
- Must be able to deal with ill-structured problems.
Problem-Solving …
- Well-structured problems
- Solve with conscious thought
- Ill-structure problems
-Have no store of knowledge
- Requires more deliberation and thought
Multi-Component Model of Problem Solving for Experts:
- Devoting considerable up-front attention to interpreting exact nature of problem.
- Anticipate most of constraints and plans ways of dealing with them before they are
encountered.
- Setting clear short term goals that decompose problems in simpler otherwise excessively
complex challenges.
- Using an explicit, well-developed set of personal values as substitute for inevitable lack of
detailed information about appropriate solutions.
Multi-Component Model …
- Develop detailed solution processes based on considerable amount of relevant data.
- Remain calm and emotionally stable in face of “crises.”
- Are more self-confident about their ability.
- Treat staff with consistent and genuine respect and courtesy.
Knowledge
- Leaders require two types of domain-specific knowledge
- Content of new curriculum or subject matter
- Knowledge of learning processes
Affective Characteristics of Successful Leaders
- Personality
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- Motivation
- Social appraisal skills
Personality
-Vast majority of evidence has concluded with the “big five” leader personality factors:
- Emotional stability
- Control moods
- Remain emotionally stable and engaged in problem solving
- Extraversion
- Sociable, gregarious, assertive, talkative
- Agreeableness
- Courteous, flexible, trusting, good-natured, cooperative, soft-hearted, tolerant
- Conscientious
- Hardworking, achievement-oriented, persevering
- Openness to experience
- Imaginative, curious, original, broad-minded, intelligent
Other Factors
-Optimism
- Proactivity
- Disposition for social dominance
- Self-efficacy (belief in ability to influence others)
- Motivation and capacity to treat others in an encouraging and positive way
- Role modeling
- Intellectual openness
Self-Efficacy
- Bandura’s work with self-efficacy
- Steers one’s choice of activities.
- Determines how much effort people will expend and how long they will persist in face
of failure or difficulty.
Bandura’s Dimensions
- Three sources of efficacy beliefs
- Mastery experiences
- Vicarious experiences
- Verbal persuasion
Self-Efficacy and Leadership
- Speculation (with lack of research) as to how Bandura’s sources apply to leaders.
- Mastery experiences acquired through professional development that help them solve
problems.
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- Vicarious experiences acquired by shadowing others.
- Verbal persuasion developed through performance evaluations.
Motivation
- According to Zaccaro et al., the motive states examined most in non-school leadership contexts
have been needed for dominance or power, achievement, and affiliation and responsibility.
- According to Drysdate; Moller et al.:
- Strong evidence for achievement needs but no evidence for dominance, power, or
affiliation.
- Considerable evidence for passion for work, high emotional commitment, and high
motivation.
Social Appraisal Skills: Emotional Understanding
- Has ability to understand the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors or persons, including self, in
interpersonal situations and to act appropriately upon that understanding.
- Appreciates emotional state of colleagues.
- Discerns those states in complex social circumstances.
- Responds in ways that are helpful.
- Understands and manages own emotions.
- Is a good listener.
- Has a good sense of humor.
- Possesses social and emotional intelliegence.
Values
- Four categories
- Basic human values
- Freedom, happiness, survival
- General moral values
- Fairness, care, courage
- Professional values
- Roles responsibilities, consequences for students
- Social and political values
- Participation, loyalty, sharing
Studies Suggest
- Basic human values and professional values dominate decision making of school leaders.
- Expert or successful leaders (as compared to novice or less successful counterparts) are:
- Guide by most of the same values but make greater use of their values to solve complex
problems in their school.
- Give greater weight to consequences for their decisions.
- Are more guided by their role responsibilities.
- Have high levels of respect and concern for others.
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Experts …
- Value their happiness, specifically the need for teachers to be happy.
- Are empathetic and care strongly about students and staff.
- Are concerned about the consequences of their actions, especially for students.
- Are concerned about the community.
- The influence of their values increases as they are faced with fewer organizational and policy
constraints on their actions.
- There is a very strong relationship between actions and values as perceived by staff, parents,
and others – authentic leadership.
Successful School Leadership – Chapter Five
Successful Leadership Practices & Pupil Learning
- Effects of leadership on pupil learning are largely indirect.
- To affect student outcomes, leadership must exercise some form of positive influence on the
work of other colleagues, especially teachers.
- How we think about the variables intervening between leaders and students depends, in some
measure, on the size of the school organization.
- “Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.”
How Leaders Influence Their Immediate Colleagues
- Assumption: Leaders can only be influential if their colleagues allow them to be.
- Both “leaders” and “followers” perspective are important.
- The key question:
- “What causes people to attribute leadership status to others and allow themselves to be
influenced in some fashion?”
Followers’ Perspectives: Leader Prototype Theory (Lord & Maher)
- Recognition-based attributions:
- Making judgments about a person’s leadership or potential with very little direct
evidence of competence or track record.
- Often superficial
- Inference-based attributions:
- Direct experiences with the potential leader in efforts to solve problems, contribute to
school improvements, engage parents more fully in the school’s work, etc.
- Many qualitative studies suggest that teachers were more influenced by inference-based than by
recognition-based.
Leaders’ Perspectives: Yukl & Chavez Taxonomy of Influence Tactics
- Inspirational Appeals: Appeals to values and ideals or the arousal of emotions.
- Consultation: Inviting feedback or advice about a proposed course of action.
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- Ingratiation: The used of praise or flattery.
- Personal Appeals: Appealing to personal friendship or favors.
- Exchange: Offering something with the expectation or reciprocity at a later time.
- Coalition Building: Enlisting aid or support of others as a means of influence.
- Legitimating Tactics: Efforts to establish the legitimacy of a course of action or to verify the
authority to carry out the action.
- Pressure: The use of demands, threats, persistent checking, etc.
Teachers’ Internal States
- Emotions that have a direct influence on teachers’ classroom work and student learning:
- Individual sense of professional efficacy
- Collective sense of professional efficacy
- Organizational commitment
- Job satisfaction
- Stress and burnout
- Trust in leaders and mutual trust among faculty, parents, and students
- Engagement and disengagement from the school and/or profession
- Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge
Work Conditions
- Complexity: Teachers’ feelings of stress, morale, and commitment affect work.
- Student grouping practices: Empirical evidence suggest that heterogeneous grouping is best for
all yet we continue to group homogenously.
- Curriculum and instruction: Many struggling children experience a curriculum focused on basic
skills and knowledge and lacking much meaning for any group of students, particularly
economically disadvantaged and ELL.
School Conditions
- Workload volume: Only about half of teacher’s time is devoted to teaching.
- Social structures and procedures:
- School size and location: Urban & suburban
- School culture and sense of professional community
- Retention and promotion policies
- Unrelated, unsustained improvement initiatives
Home and Community Conditions
- Partnerships with parents and wider community
- Conditions in the homes
Conclusions
- Building positive teacher commitment and resilience
- Direction setting: Developing an inspiring and shared sense of purpose, enhances
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teachers’ work (unreasonable expectations have a negative effect).
- Developing people: Being collegial, considerate, and supportive.
- Listening to teachers’ ideas, and generally looking out for teachers’ personal and
professional welfare.
- Acknowledging and rewarding good work and providing feedback to teachers about
their work.
- Redesigning the organization: Flexible enforcement of rules.
- Managing the teaching and learning program:
- Buffering teachers from distractions to their classroom work.
- Providing teaching and learning support.
- Finding creative ways to improve the conditions and opportunities for teaching
and learning.
- Providing resources for teachers.
- Minimizing student misbehavior or disorder in school.