Reviewing school leadership: from psychology to philosophy

Abstract

Arguably the notion of the school leader as the all-important person in school improvement in England still holds sway, despite the development of a huge range of leadership theories and perspectives which suggest a broader contextual approach may be appropriate. Reflecting on the development of a MA course in leadership and management, this paper argues that a philosophical approach based on the later work of Wittgenstein is helpful. The starting point for the approach used here is Wittgenstein's notion of language-games, which gives recognition to the many different views, descriptions, definitions, and theories of leadership. Informed by Wittgenstein's wider argument, it develops by bringing in the notions of family resemblance, social rules, and forms of life to suggest that Wittgenstein's account of meaning is able to move us towards a better understanding of the range of views about school leadership.

Developing a School Improvement Scale to Transform Education into being Sustainable and Quality Driven

“…Previous studies show that many factors affect school improvement, of which leadership is the most important (Newman, 2020). Other important factors are teacher professional improvement and the school’s transformation into a learning organization (Jacobs & Struyf, 2015; Senge, 2016).…”

“…In this study, we determined 5 basic factors by focusing on the variables revealed during previous studies. These factors are effective leadership, school climate, teacher professional development, learning environment, vision, and mission (Lee & Louis, 2019; Newman, 2020; Prenger et al, 2021). The minimum and maximum score obtainable from the developed scale is 33, and 165, respectively.…”

“…Many factors affect effective school and leadership, teacher professional development and cooperation, qualified student outcomes, quality in education, accountability, coordination and planning, continuous development and sustainability, that come to the fore during school improvement studies (Andreoli et al, 2020; Fullan, 2005; Hopkins et al, 1994). Leadership is the most important of these (Newman, 2020). School principals wanting to embrace change, and carry it to the improvement dimension, should understand that “school improvement is not an act of adaptation” (Hallinger, 2014; Trombly, 2014) but a continuous improvement effort.…”

Lifelong learning-centred community-based leadership development in higher education.

“…Traditionally, leadership is synonymous with the process of management, including mindsets and skills taken from businessbased thinking. This thinking is often associated with a managerial skillset highlighted by step-bystep planning and mistake-free solutions (James et al, 2020;Newman, 2020).…”

Pedagogical Leadership within the Framework of Human Talent Management: A Comprehensive Approach from the Perspective of Higher Education in Ecuador

“…Inspirational leadership (followers feel valued; and finally, there is the idealized influence related to the charism, which arises from an identification emotional among the group leader and his associates); 4. Idealized influence [17]. Pedagogical leadership.…”