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The purpose of this paper is to examine teachers’ perspectives on school leaders’ selection and development strategies in order to propose/recommend strategies that are relevant to the context of the United Arab Emirates.

The study gathered data through group discussion of school teachers who attended the module “leadership for school improvement” taught by the researchers. The teachers who participated in this study include local and expat teachers who are currently working in both public and private schools in the UAE. The reports of the group discussion were used as transcripts and thematic analysis was used to analyse the results.

The results indicate that there is a strong aspiration for setting better standards for the selection of the school leaders. There is great interest in engaging experts and instrumenting accredited continued professional development training on developing school leaders. The respondents emphasised on the required qualifications, experiences and knowledge, and the need for mentorship approach.

The key limitation of the study is the smaller sample size.

The outcome of the study offers necessary insight to the decision makers on the selection and development of school leaders in the UAE.

The study insists that the social and cultural values of the UAE to be considered in the selection and development of school leaders in the UAE.

The study offers potential gap and scope for further research on school leadership in the UAE that could be further explored with many samples and cases for broader understanding.

The purpose of this paper was to determine what experienced school leaders learned through participating in a three-year leadership initiative, called the Leadership Learning Community (LLC), that helped them coach less experienced leaders to lead school improvement efforts.

Data were collected and analyzed using a qualitative design throughout the three-year initiative.

The findings indicate the LLC leadership coaches learned to accept and navigate the leaders' developmental and contextual needs, practiced and honed their coaching skills and recognized their own developmental needs.

These findings address the paucity of research on leadership coach learning and development.

Architecture deals with the creation and definition of space expressed in buildings and other physical structures. Pre‐service preparation programs and on‐going professional development for school leaders similarly are built structures designed to help aspiring and practicing administrators acquire critical knowledge, dispositions, and competencies as democratic educational leaders. Building on earlier work on the architecture of professional development, this paper argues that the pre‐service preparation of school leaders is a particular type of professional development; one that is formalized and routinely delivered in departments of educational administration. Next, current state and national standards documents are reviewed for evidence of explicitly or implicitly expressed democratic principles. The paper ends with a description of how the redesign of administrator preparation and professional development programs in the authors department, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison, created spaces for professional learning and community building anchored in democratic principles.

Our chapter examines the ways national developments in Australia and New Zealand over the past two decades reflect distinctively antipodean understandings of educational leadership and management. Our interest is twofold. We are concerned about the extent to which these understandings are reflected in strategies designed to enhance the quality of school leadership. We are also concerned about the extent to which these strategies represent progress towards achieving ‘sustainable’ school leadership. We define sustainable leadership in terms of both building leadership capacity within the organisation and embedding lasting organisational change (Fink & Brayman, 2006; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006; Spillane, 2006). The concept used here implies both models of distributed or shared leadership and leadership succession.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of (Co‐LEAD) (Commonwealth project on leadership in education assessment and development), the overall purpose of which was to find out school leaders' training needs around the Commonwealth in order to provide some answers with regards to the professional development needs of school principals.

A mixed methods approach (e.g. both qualitative as well as quantitative) was utilized in order to carry out this study. The questionnaire consisted of 46 statements which make reference to the main functions of school leadership, such as, School Climate and School Improvement, Instructional Leadership and Human Resource Management, as well as Relations with Parents and the Community. The gap analysis method was used for the questionnaire items. Finally, complimentary to the questionnaires, it was decided to have on‐site visitations and interviews with “real people” on the ground.

Based on the authors' analyses and interpretations, it seems that the greatest needs for leadership improvement and training are in three areas: Trust Building and Collaboration which includes Relations with Parents and the Community, promotion of cooperation with other organizations and businesses from the community so that students' needs are addressed and initiation of trust building activities within the local community; Encouraging Instructional Leadership and Human Resource Development which includes Instructional Leadership and Human Resource Management and systematic monitoring of instructional and managerial processes to ensure that program activities are related to program outcomes; and Initiating School Improvement and Development which includes the application of research findings to facilitate school improvement, the development of budgets based upon documented program needs, and the provision of opportunities to students to participate actively in school management issues.

This piece of research extends knowledge with regards to the expressed needs for leadership training and improvement for school principals. It documents that if such an endeavor is to be successful, it has to be contextualized and therefore, training should be region and country specific.

The purpose of this study is to examine principal succession planning and management by analyzing current practices of handling school leader succession in four Georgia school systems.

Looking through the lens of organizational leadership succession theory, the practices of school systems as they experienced changes in school leadership were examined. Participants included superintendents, assistant superintendents, other central office leaders, and principals. A multiple‐case approach was selected with semi‐structured interviews providing the major source of data.

Findings suggest the following: there is a difference in the sense of urgency for the planning and management of the succession of principals; the development of aspiring leaders was identified as a critical component of planning and management of succession; mentoring was an essential practice through the succession process; and reliance on collaborative partnerships with outside organizations was highly valued.

The implications of the study include a call for further research to determine the differences in leader succession planning and management needs related to the varying contexts. In addition, the study implies that building collaborative partnerships with university preparation programs and other external professional development organizations may assist systems in the planning and management of principal succession.

The originality of this study stems from the lack of literature that directly examines the experiences and practices of principal succession. The findings can inform school system leaders of succession planning and management issues and practices that exist in the four systems studied. As leadership becomes more recognized for its impact on student achievement and school performance, it is imperative that succession is managed and planned to ensure sustainability and effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the socialisation and leader identity development of school leaders in Southern African countries.

The study utilised a survey of qualitative data where data collection primarily involved in-depth interviews with school principals and deputy principals of both primary and secondary schools.

Findings revealed that early socialisation to leadership transpired during childhood and early schooling at which points in time the characteristics and values of leadership integral to the participants’ leadership practice were acquired. Initial teacher training was found to be significant in introducing principalship role conception. Leader identity was also found to develop outside the context of school through pre-socialising agents long before the teaching and leading roles are assumed.

The study presents an overview of the findings from four countries in Southern Africa, providing a complex process with overlapping stages of career socialisation. Existing research puts emphasis on formal leadership preparation as a significant part of socialisation – this study suggests alternatives for poorly resourced countries. Significantly, the paper improves our understanding that school leader identity is both internal and external to the school environment.

The aim of this paper is to bring together for the first time three studies of middle‐level leaders in secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. The studies span more than a decade and allow consideration of the progress in developing middle‐level leadership roles.

All studies followed a consistent approach using multiple perspective interviews of middle‐level curriculum and subject leadership in government and Catholic secondary schools in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Principals, senior leaders, middle‐level leaders and teachers were interviewed to gain their perceptions on middle‐level leadership. Interviews were supplemented with school document analysis.

The work of middle‐level leaders is heavily dependent on how their roles are constructed and the capacities, abilities and attitudes of the leaders. Some are expected to be leaders that influence teaching and learning, and they may be developed and supported to do so. Too often, however, teachers in these key roles have few expectations or opportunities to exercise leadership. Whilst many have the capacity to be leaders of teaching and learning, others are not sure about their ability to influence teaching and learning. Suggestions are made for how leadership might be structured in schools to emphasise the importance of middle‐level leaders, and how these leaders can be better prepared and supported.

Observational studies, studies of primary school contexts and cross‐country comparisons would extend this research.

Middle‐level school leaders need to be seen as key personnel in improving teaching and learning, school structures need to reflect this, and developing leadership capacity needs to be prioritised.

This paper highlights continuing issues with how the work of middle‐level school leaders is conceptualised and supported, and makes suggestions for leadership structure and the preparation and development of school leaders.

Efficacy has been broadly analyzed and explored in depth in various fields. However, in the field of educational leadership, empirical studies and research evidence are weak. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a new School Leaders’ Self-Efficacy Scale (SLSES).

Two studies were undertaken. In the first study, the extant literature was critiqued and an initial form of the SLSES was developed; it was then administered to 233 school leaders in Cyprus. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was employed to identify the structure of the scale. The second study aimed at validating the proposed model by employing confirmatory factor analysis. For this purpose, a revised SLSES was administered for a second time to 289 school leaders.

EFA suggested an eight-factor structure, namely: Creating an appropriate organizational structure, Leading and managing the learning organization, School Self-Evaluation for School Improvement, Developing a positive climate and managing conflicts, Evaluating classroom practices, Adhering to community and policy demands, Monitoring learning, and Leadership of Continuing Professional Development. Confirmatory model fit indices, factor pattern and structure coefficients, and reliability analyses provided robust evidence for the construct validity of the SLSES.

The paper describes the construction and validation of a new scale measuring school leaders’ self-efficacy. The SLSES provides practitioners and researchers with a promising tool, with implications for measuring the outcomes of the professional development of school leaders and for school improvement studies.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss feedback-based group coaching as a strategy towards school leaders’ development. On the basis of data collected within the framework of the project “Professional Learning through Feedback and Reflection” (PROFLEC), this case study explores the Cypriot school leaders’ views about feedback and coaching as developmental tools. The PROFLEC project was implemented in participating countries during 2013-2015 and involved completing an online leadership self-assessment inventory, training as well as coaching sessions.

Observations and interviews with coachees and coaches illustrate participants’ views on feedback-based group coaching, the critical conditions of its implementation and the perceived value of the particular model.

The study concludes that feedback-based group coaching can enhance school leaders’ organisational socialisation and learning; yet, certain aspects, such as the nature of the feedback, the role of the coaches, the establishment of trust as well as voluntary participation are required to enhance reflection towards action for school leaders.

This paper supports the importance of feedback-based group coaching as a developmental strategy for school leaders.