Educational Management Administration & Leadership

The current focus on school leader preparation reflects the importance societies around the world are placing upon the goal of improving their educational systems. The investment of substantial new resources into leadership preparation and development activities is based upon the belief that school leaders make a difference in both the effectiveness and efficiency of schooling. Developing school leaders who do make a difference, however, requires a management curriculum that is relevant to schools, up-to-date in learning methods, and which draws upon knowledge from disciplines inside and outside of education. This article examines the implications that curricular trends in the development of business leaders may have for leadership preparation and development in education. The authors acknowledge, at the outset, that differences in the practice of education and business management require some differences in the content of preparation programs. At the same time, we argue for an integration of selected business-related understandings of organizational management that are highly relevant for the improvement of schools.

In the face of globalization, states around the world have tried to regain legitimacy by using a policy framework known as new public management (NPM). In education, it promises to improve quality and competitiveness, by means of increasing control over educational institutions, implementing managerial techniques and submitting educational institutions to increased competitiveness. This article presents evidence from an exploratory study comparing senior college administrators' attitudes in the Canadian province of British Columbia and those of vocational school administrators in two German subjurisdictions toward NPM. Questions addressed include: (1) how NPM-related measures were perceived by those administrators; and (2) how differences in the way reform discourses are framed in the different subjurisdictions impact the administrators' attitudes towards NPM. Findings show that the level of agreement on different aspects of NPM was comparatively similar across countries and subjurisdictions. Correlational analysis, however, revealed differences between the administrators' semantic constructions of the reform policy. Interpretive analysis indicated that semantic constructions were linked to the varying policy discourses of the subjurisdictions. The article concludes that discourse is an important aspect when introducing NPM in educational institutions, since it lays the groundwork for the conceptualization of future policy discourses.

Within the complex working of today's schools, as principals share the lead and the load, the success of their performance will be determined by their ability to inspire a culture of empowerment by acting as `hero-makers' rather than heroes. Drawing on the resources of others is essential for the site-based breakthroughs or change in complex school systems and in turn builds human capacity and self-knowledge. In order to develop human potential, the leader needs to know people well, look for strengths in individuals, and build upon them. Effective communication is instrumental in establishing collaborative relationships and is a key aspect of building leadership capacity in a school. These relationships provide the framework within which we come to understand and value each other's experiences, interests, and dreams. In this article, I will discuss the findings of a study that describe how principals used communication strategies and skills to foster the empowerment of other stakeholders within the context of collaborative initiatives. The findings from this qualitative focus group study involving principals, parents and teachers demonstrate that leaders can use several communication techniques to encourage shared leadership and thereby to build human and organizational capacity.

This article analyses the views of selected headteachers on the impact of the 10-year basic education policy on the leadership skills of secondary school headteachers in Botswana. Research literature on school leadership and management in Botswana is sparse. Despite this, demands for effective leadership in schools have continued as the education system changes. In 1996, the Botswana Government started to implement a 10-year basic education programme, which rapidly increased student numbers at both community junior and senior secondary schools and building projects for school expansion became the order of the day. Secondary school headteachers have to manage these changes. A central focus of this article is their perceptions of the practice used to appoint them, leadership skills required for the post, their leadership training, and how training for leadership can be improved to meet the educational changes. Using results of the interview data collected from eight selected secondary school headteachers, this article exposes the limitations of the practice and procedures that are used in appointing headteachers to school leadership position and the established procedures intended to develop a skilled leadership force in secondary education to ensure quality education. The article highlights the need for Botswana to establish a leadership training policy to guide the training of headteachers and ensure that schools become effective.

Following the initiation of educational reforms, this article reports on the different models of leadership that have emerged as being important for developing teacher professionalism in government primary schools in Karachi, Pakistan. The evidence from the case studies, reported in this article, illustrates that even within formalized government primary school structures, such as those in Pakistan, principals can make a shift from traditional leadership styles to more contemporary approaches designed to enhance teacher professionalism. The first section of the article presents the literature review and the background analysis. In the second part, information about the research project and the development of the four cases is provided. The third section utilizes the findings from the four case studies to discuss the central roles played by the school principals in enhancing teacher professionalism and the key leadership models that have emerged as important as a result of performing these roles. Finally, the article argues that the principals require training for high quality leadership in similar types of schools in Karachi.

Job satisfaction has been associated with a variety of behaviours relating to communication. However, very little research has been conducted in primary schools encompassing job satisfaction and a range of communication variables. This study investigated the relationships between aspects of organizational communication and facets of job satisfaction. The participants were 356 staff members from 52 primary schools of six Catholic education systems in New South Wales, Australia. The participants completed a survey consisting of the Organizational Communication in Primary Schools Questionnaire and the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ). Ten organizational communication factors and nine job satisfaction factors were identified. Multiple regression analyses identified several organizational communication factors that were predictors of job satisfaction. The results suggest implications for policy and practice with regard to communication in these schools.

In their commitment to raising standards successive Conservative and Labour governments have moved progressively to tighter prescription of school policy and more far reaching proscription of practices deemed unacceptable. This article examines how 12 headteachers construct the policy environment and how they respond to it in the schools they lead. The evidence base is 12 in-depth interviews with headteachers, in six primary schools and six secondary at the outset of the TLRP/ESRC research project Learning How to Learn. This subset of headteacher interviews from the total number were selected for this article because these 12 interviews were accompanied by the fullest data set of complementary interviews, questionnaire and observation data which will be the subject of other papers to follow. The interviews provide a baseline picture of how these school leaders were talking about leading learning in their schools and the authority, or `warrant' they referred to in validating their views. Patterns of compliance and subversion are examined with reference to theories of organizational, and `double loop' learning.