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1 – 10 of over 105000School library media specialists (SLMSs) often struggle with assuming leadership roles. Discrepancies existed in perceptions of SLMSs of their leadership preparedness, their…
Abstract
School library media specialists (SLMSs) often struggle with assuming leadership roles. Discrepancies existed in perceptions of SLMSs of their leadership preparedness, their opportunities to exert leadership, and their assumption of leadership roles. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the perceptions of SLMSs regarding their instructional leadership and to examine the extent to which they practiced instructional leadership. The study was designed to determine whether there were differences between SLMSs perceptions of the importance of their leadership roles and their opportunities to practice those roles. The results of the study indicated that SLMSs perceived all of the leadership roles to be more important than they were able to carry out in practice and that supportive administrators were the most essential factor in providing SLMSs the opportunity to practice and expand their roles as instructional leaders.
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Based on a critique of reductive understandings of physicality, this chapter explores the significance of embodied materiality, the artefactual physical, the role of the living…
Abstract
Based on a critique of reductive understandings of physicality, this chapter explores the significance of embodied materiality, the artefactual physical, the role of the living body and embodiment in relation to ‘intra and inter’ practices of leadership from a phenomenological perspective. Using a phenomenological and cross-disciplinary approach, issues of an embodied physicality in leadership are systematically explored and implications discussed beyond physicalist empiricism and meta-physical idealism. Furthermore, the chosen phenomenological approach reveals problematising limitations of naturalist and constructionist approaches.
Following Merleau-Ponty an extended understanding of physicality as well as the significance of the co-constitutive role of embodiment, inter-corporeality and intra-action in and of leadership practices in organisational life-worlds are identified and discussed. Insights into the role of corporeal materio-socio phenomena and expressions of meaningful practices of leading and following are rendered. The chapter concludes by noting limitations and implications of embodied physicality and physical inter-becoming of ‘bodiment’ for a more integral and sustainable conception of leader-and followership in organisations. Through its specific post-dualistic approach the chapter provides an innovative perspective on the interrelations between living, material, bodily and embodied dimensions of physicality in leadership.
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Joseph S. Agbenyega and Umesh Sharma
Leading inclusion is a complex field of practice that is framed in traditional conceptions of school administration. Leadership in inclusive schools is a constant struggle with…
Abstract
Leading inclusion is a complex field of practice that is framed in traditional conceptions of school administration. Leadership in inclusive schools is a constant struggle with fluctuating dimensions, often compounding difficulties for students with difference and disability. Nevertheless, inclusive school leadership remains an important component of successful practice of inclusive education, where all students with diverse abilities equally benefit. This chapter provides an introduction to different types of leadership practices that promote inclusive practices. A key focus of the chapter is to discuss the social theory of Bourdieu in relation to understanding and measuring what we consider as effective inclusive school leadership. This framework provides both theoretical and practical approaches in developing inclusive school leadership practices and ways effective inclusive leadership practices could be measured.
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Abdul-Latif Alhassan and Brandon W. Kliewer
Leadership studies, as an academic discipline and field of practice, have predominantly been developed in relation to Western forms of knowledge, norms, and cultural practices…
Abstract
Leadership studies, as an academic discipline and field of practice, have predominantly been developed in relation to Western forms of knowledge, norms, and cultural practices. Knowledge and ways of practicing leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa contexts are often unseen or marginalized in formal leadership studies literature. This is also true for the way leadership is practiced throughout the networks of the African Diaspora. The influence of uniquely African ways of knowing, doing, and experiencing leadership is even more challenging in the context of the African Diaspora. Often contextualized within the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trades, and increasingly shaped by contemporary dynamics of globalization, the African Diaspora and leadership exist at the intersection of multiple cultures and contexts. Leadership theory and practice must account for these inter- and multicultural contexts to better understand and practice leadership in the African Diaspora. The objective of this chapter is to develop a collective, constructionist, and practice frame capable of teasing apart cultural and contextual influences of leadership in the African Diaspora. This is not a comprehensive account of approaches to African Leadership, but instead a preliminary effort to mark out collective, constructionist, and practice approaches to leadership in the African Diaspora as it exists in practice and might inform future research and leadership learning and development efforts.
Salla Lehtonen and Hannele Seeck
This paper reviews what has been written on leadership development from the leadership-as-practice (L-A-P) perspective, which views leadership as emerging in everyday activities…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reviews what has been written on leadership development from the leadership-as-practice (L-A-P) perspective, which views leadership as emerging in everyday activities and interactions of a collective in a specific context. This paper aims to deepen the theoretical understanding of how leadership can be learned and developed from the L-A-P perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
An integrative literature review was undertaken to review and synthesise what has been written on the topic in journal articles and scholarly books.
Findings
The importance of the context and the practices that are embedded in it is the most central aspect affecting leadership development from the L-A-P perspective. This places workplace leadership development centre stage, but several papers also showed that leadership programmes have an important role. Not only collective capacity building is emphasised in the papers, but the importance of individual-level leader development is also recognised.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study is twofold: First, it brings the currently fractured information on L-A-P development together to enhance theory building by providing a synthesis of the literature. Second, a conceptual framework is constructed to show how the L-A-P perspective on leadership development can take both leadership development at the collective and individual levels into account, as well as the learning that takes place either inside or outside the workplace. This study’s results and framework show that the development has its own specific purpose and suggested methods in both levels, in both learning sites.
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– The purpose of this paper is to explore how leadership is practiced across four different hospital units.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how leadership is practiced across four different hospital units.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is a comparative case study of four hospital units, based on detailed observations of the everyday work practices, interactions and interviews with ten interdisciplinary clinical managers.
Findings
Comparing leadership as configurations of practices across four different clinical settings, the author shows how flexible and often shared leadership practices were embedded in and central to the core clinical work in all units studied here, especially in more unpredictable work settings. Practices of symbolic work and emotional support to staff were particularly important when patients were severely ill.
Research limitations/implications
Based on a study conducted with qualitative methods, these results cannot be expected to apply in all clinical settings. Future research is invited to extend the findings presented here by exploring leadership practices from a micro-level perspective in additional health care contexts: particularly the embedded and emergent nature of such practices.
Practical implications
This paper shows leadership practices to be primarily embedded in the clinical work and often shared across organizational or professional boundaries.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrated how leadership practices are embedded in the everyday work in hospital units. Moreover, the analysis shows how configurations of leadership practices varied in four different clinical settings, thus contributing with contextual accounts of leadership as practice, and suggested “configurations of practice” as a way to carve out similarities and differences in leadership practices across settings.
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Sedat Gümüş and Mehmet Şükrü Bellibaş
There is an extensive body of contemporary educational literature concerning teachers' professional development (PD), but little attention has been paid to the PD of principals…
Abstract
Purpose
There is an extensive body of contemporary educational literature concerning teachers' professional development (PD), but little attention has been paid to the PD of principals, despite their vital role in improving student learning outcomes. The available literature on principals' PD deals with content and quality while mostly ignoring whether and how PD activities have an impact on leadership practices. In our study, we wanted to examine the extent to which principals perform learning-centred leadership practices and whether and how their practices are influenced by the PD programmes they have engaged in during the past twelve months.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 130 Turkish principals participated in the study. Using the SEM model, we examined the direct and indirect links between principals' PD and their self-perceived learning-centred leadership practices, with self-efficacy as the mediating variable.
Findings
We found a positive, statistically significant yet weak relationship between principals' PD and their leadership practices, with self-efficacy playing a considerable mediating role.
Originality/value
We argue that traditional types of PD activities can contribute to the leadership practices of principals, at least in countries where school principals are not adequately prepared for principalship positions. We suggest that such activities can contribute by providing newly appointed school principals with certain basic knowledge regarding effective leadership that many principals in developing countries are missing due to the lack of pre-service training. These activities can also strengthen principals' belief in their ability to overcome school problems and improve student learning. This, in turn, could motivate them to focus more on learning-centred leadership practices.
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Jessica Rigby, Emily Donaldson Walsh, Shelley Boten, Allison Deno, M. Scott Harrison, Rodrick Merrell, Sarah Pritchett and Scott Seaman
Research on principal supervisors (PSs) is an emerging field, and principal supervision for racial equity has not yet been studied or theorized. Conducted in partnership with…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on principal supervisors (PSs) is an emerging field, and principal supervision for racial equity has not yet been studied or theorized. Conducted in partnership with practicing district leaders, the purpose of this paper is to examine current PS leadership in three districts at various points of engagement in equitable leadership practices and set forth a framework for conceptualizing systems equitable leadership practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This collaborative study emerged from an EdD course project in which groups of practitioner–scholars identified and collected qualitative interview, survey and artifact data about problems of practice in their districts. University researchers supported data collection and conducted analyses across settings, building on Ishimaru and Galloway’s (2014) equitable leadership practices framework.
Findings
Equitable PS leadership practices were variable. No district engaged with “proficiency” across all drivers of equitable leadership practice, but the district that engaged in equitable PS practices most deeply framed the work of schooling as a race-explicit endeavor, suggesting that framing is a fundamental driver.
Research limitations/implications
This paper builds on PS and equity-focused leadership research by adding a systems-level equity focus.
Practical implications
Findings suggest that districts should focus on equity framing as the foundation for principal support and development.
Originality/value
This researcher/practitioner–scholar collaboration shows how practitioner–scholars provide focus and expertise to the field unavailable to traditional researchers.
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Augustus E. Osseo‐Asare, David Longbottom and William D. Murphy
To deepen the understanding and to encourage further research on leadership best practices for sustaining quality improvement in UK higher education institutions (HEIs).
Abstract
Purpose
To deepen the understanding and to encourage further research on leadership best practices for sustaining quality improvement in UK higher education institutions (HEIs).
Design/methodology/approach
The literature on leadership provides the theoretical context for the survey of quality managers from 42 UK HEIs. A mix of questionnaires, interviews, and hypothesis testing, was used to explore the critical factors for effective leadership and to obtain descriptive accounts of leadership best practices, which led to the development of a conceptual framework for effective leadership for academic quality.
Findings
Identifies and categorizes leadership practices into “weak”, “good”, “best”, and “excellent” on the basis of efficiency and effectiveness of each practice in sustaining academic quality improvement. It provides a conceptual framework for improving “weak” leadership practices.
Research limitations/implications
The exact nature of the association between “effective leadership” and sustainable “levels of academic quality improvement” has not been explained. This requires further research. International generalization of the findings would require the sample size of 42 UK HEIs to be extended to include institutions from other countries with similar education systems – such as the USA and Australia.
Practical implications
Academic quality planners will become more aware of the need to improve the tasks and activities constituting leadership processes. The emphasis on a structured approach to self‐assessment of leadership performance has the potential to reverse the ranking of leadership second to processes in UK HEIs.
Originality/value
It provides explicit definitions of “weak”, “good”, “best” and “excellent” leadership practices, which UK HEIs adopting the excellence model developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) may find useful in the assessment and improvement of leadership performance towards academic excellence.
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Mark H. Blitz, Jason Salisbury and Carolyn Kelley
The Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) is an online task-based assessment of distributed instructional leadership. In developing CALL, researchers faced…
Abstract
Purpose
The Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) is an online task-based assessment of distributed instructional leadership. In developing CALL, researchers faced the challenge of structuring survey items that would measure leadership practice rather than individual traits. Critical in this work was developing items that accurately reflected current leadership practice. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to pilot the CALL instrument and conducted cognitive validity testing on the instrument.
Design/methodology/approach
CALL researchers piloted the survey in six schools in Wisconsin in order to test and refine the survey instrument. Researchers conducted cognitive walk-through interviews with five participants from each school: principals, associate principals, teachers, department chairs, guidance counselors, and activities directors. The interviews focussed on specific items in order to observe the users’ thought processes and rationale in choosing a response for each item. The researchers focussed on relevancy, clarity, and accuracy of survey items in collecting and analyzing the resulting data.
Findings
Three specific survey items were identified that exemplify these challenges and opportunities such as: accessible language, extended leadership, socially desirable responding, 360-degree perspectives, applying appropriate terminology, and identifying appropriate practices. These findings provided insight into survey development work and implications of distributed leadership. The authors discuss the challenges of creating a task-based leadership assessment.
Originality/value
Developing a formative assessment of school leadership is valuable in supporting school leaders’ work. The process of utilizing a qualitative approach to develop a quantitative instrument has proven critical in measuring task-based distributed leadership.
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