Leadership and Management Development in Education (Education ...

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THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT111provides at least baseline competence in the leadership role. Reeves (2004: 43)asserts that ‘one of the hallmarks of effective leadership evaluation is that it isstandards based’. The Scottish Qualification for Headship (SQH), for example,is based on the Standard for Headship in Scotland which:sets out the key aspects of professionalism and expertise which theScottish education system requires of those who are entrusted with theleadership and management of its schools. (SOEID 1998, in Reeves et al.2001: 38)The danger of a standards-based approach is that it may atomise and over-simplifythe complex role of the principal. Specifying a set of specific competences assumesthat they are generally applicable across all contexts. There are also difficulties inassessing whether potential heads have reached an appropriate standard (Male2006: 64). This presents another challenge in that measurable outcomes are likelyto be privileged over those that may be just as important but are less easilyassessed. Brundrett et al. (2006: 100) warn that such competency frameworks leadto ‘one size fits all’ models that are inappropriate for the complexity of school leadershipin the twenty-first century.Content-led or process-rich programmesBush et al. (2007b) point to the importance of school leaders being coconstructorsof their learning, because they are usually well-educated seniorprofessionals with a highly developed sense of their own learning needs. Theirmeta-analysis of NCSL evaluations shows that participants mostly preferprocess-rich learning and reject ‘content-heavy’ programmes. The most valuedactivities are networking, through face-to-face events or purposeful schoolvisits. Linked to the latter, learning is enhanced where schools are the mainfoci of learning, enabling participants to engage with real, and often pressing,problems rather than artificial or simulated cases. They add that thistwenty-first-century model offers a much more flexible approach, linked to thepersonal, and often emergent, needs of learners, with a strong element ofschool-based learning and a clear recognition that senior professionals areentitled to participate in constructing their own learning agenda. Walkerand Carr-Stewart (2006: 32) add that new principals need opportunities toreflect on what has been successful in their own practice. However, it may beargued that provider-led learning also has merit. It provides a consistentapproach, it enables the dissemination of good practice derived from theoryand research, and it draws on the expertise of more experienced leaders as wellas academics.
112LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONA specific repertoire of leadership practices or a contingencyapproach?Leithwood et al.’s (2006: 6) ‘seven strong claims about school leadership’include the comment that ‘almost all successful leaders draw on the same repertoireof basic leadership practices’. While acknowledging the importance ofcontext, they assert that this is significant for the application of this repertoire,rather than requiring a different skills set. The four basic practices are:• Building vision and setting directions• Understanding and developing people• Redesigning the organisation• Managing the teaching and learning programme.(Ibid.)These categories are quite broad but, in principle, they provide a framework forthe design, and evaluation, of leadership development programmes. However,we have already noted a growing trend to personalise programmes in responseto individual needs and contextual variables. When Bush and Heystek (2006)asked South African principals about their development needs, the ‘managementof finance’ was the most often stated requirement. This is because of thepost-Apartheid shift to self-managing schools, which has imposed several newbudgeting and fee-setting responsibilities on school governing bodies and principals.A development framework that excluded this dimension would not meetthe needs of South African principals.Campus-based or field-based learning?Most preparation programmes, notably those operated by universities, tend tobe campus based. Participants work through a set curriculum and are assessedon their understanding, and sometimes their application, of certain principlesof leadership and management. However, there is a growing view that leadershiplearning should be field based, taking place in schools not in providers’classrooms. ‘The school administrator’s role is best learned in the field by doingand under the guidance of experienced, exemplary mentor principals’ (Heck2003: 252).Bush et al.’s (2007b) meta-analysis of NCSL evaluations provides evidencethat participants prefer to use their own school for learning, inspired by thenotion of making ‘the workplace the workshop’. They argue that workplacelearning may be accelerated:
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PrefaceThe significance of effectiv
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