System Leadership and School Leadership

Year 2018, Volume: 3 Issue: 2, 207 - 229, 15.12.2018

David Gurr , Lawrie Drysdale

https://doi.org/10.30828/real/2018.2.4

Cited By: 5

Abstract

This article
describes research on system and school leadership from three perspectives. At
the system level, leadership was evident at the senior levels of the central
and regional systems, with principal network leaders having potential to
exercise occasional leadership. Principals tended not to operate as system
leaders because they had limited influence across multiple schools. At a
regional level, it was clear that directors acted as system level leaders,
exerting wide influence on clusters of schools to improve. At a school level,
the work of the principal, other school leaders, and critical friends was more
important to the improvement journey of the school than system leadership. It
seems that whilst system leadership can be important, it needs to work in
conjunction with school leadership to maximize influence on school success. 

Keywords

System Leadership, School Leadership, Critical Friends, Leadership and Context

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