School Leadership Development — What works?

While research on school leadership has taken huge leaps and bounds in the past decade or so, there are two things that all research agrees on, and which is crucial to what this article aims to discuss: leadership matters, and leadership can be developed. What research varies on, from context to context and from study is to study, is exactly how crucial it is — what are the implications on school improvement, on teaching practices, on student development, and so on. Research also varies on how it can be developed — owing to different contexts and characteristics. However, there are some trends that experiences of leadership development programs agree on. These trends are what this article would explore. This article is the second of a five-part series aiming to delve deeper into the questions of:

• What do effective school leadership development programs have in common?
• What topics or areas of focus are the most common and critical, and through what modes are school leaders more effectively engaged?
• How might success of school leadership development programs be measured?
• What are school leaders’ expectations from school leadership development programs?, and
• A case study of leadership development in a state in India

School Leadership Development — What and how?

One insight from research on leadership development programs over the world is that there is fair consensus on what works in making these programs effective. It largely boils down to the following five elements:

These are further detailed in an article here. The focus of this article would be to go deeper into the questions of what ideas, concepts, themes, or topics are most relevant for school leaders, and what are some of the most effective ways in engaging them in continuous and relevant professional development?

Before we get to what works, it helps to look back at learnings we’ve had through trial and error. Some common points of failure that programs commonly have tend to be around:

• Poor alignment between the needs of school heads, and what the program offers
• This is closely related to programs often ‘boxing’ or separating the school heads’ actual work from what happens in the program itself — and hence not leveraging the opportunities for learning that being in a role already provides
• Disconnect between professional learning of school heads with the larger context & aims of districts or states
• And finally, failure to effectively use technology to further learning

Although highlighted by Coffin (1997), these continue to be relevant challenges. Several recent studies resonate with some or all of these challenges. For instance, the analysis of materials used in a programme in Africa showed that in addition to being too detailed and over-theoretical, they lacked constructive alignment to the work situation of many principals heading disadvantaged schools in South Africa (Bush et al. 2011). Apart from this, one other frequent response of the principals was that the materials were too long or bulky. McLennan (2000) reported of an earlier training programme in the Gauteng province in South Africa, which used the workshop model of development, that it was poorly organised and irrelevant to their work realities as principals.

The Curriculum

While we would be focusing on the two questions of what, and how, separately, it is important to note that they are deeply intertwined — and what we learn, is quite dependent on how we learn it. Group discussions, collaborative exercises, and reflective exercises are great examples of overlap between what we learn, and how we learn it. As Peterson summarizes — Leadership development should combine theory and practice, provide scaffolded learning experiences under the guidance of experienced mentors, offer opportunities to actively reflect on leadership experiences, and foster peer networking. (Peterson, 2001; NAELP, 2002). Another important aspect is the role that context plays in determining the curriculum of the program — there may be contextual differences that states & districts would need to keep in mind for making programs effective and relevant.

In studying leadership programs worldwide, there is growing similarity in the curriculum that the programs implement — often including a holistic picture of the role of school leadership from driving school transformation, to instructional leaders, to engaging the wider community. And while these topics have a fairly consistent and common presence, a similarly consistent and common absence has been the focus on leadership practices, competencies, and values — which have not so much to do with the profession of being a school leader, but more to do with the role of leadership in general. Schleicher (2012) proposes this model:

• A focus on leadership requirements: Vision and values, Knowledge and understanding, Personal qualities, social and interpersonal skills
• Application of these in professional practices: Leading teaching and learning, developing self and others, leading improvement, innovation and change, leading management of the school, engaging and working with the community

Similar common elements have been identified by others -

• leadership; including vision, mission and transformational leadership
• learning and teaching, or ‘instructional leadership
• human resource management and professional development
• management of external relations & the school community (Bush and Jackson, 2002, p421)

The key areas of school leadership development have been summarised in the diagram below. However, it is also important to note that although there are multiple aspects of development, there needs to be focused effort on particularly the areas of leading transformational change, and instructional leadership.

Diagram 1 — A summary of common elements of a leadership development curriculum

Following is a summary of the key professional practices:

Leading Improvement

This key area is about developing the leadership capacity to identify challenges & opportunities, innovate solutions for improvement, and involve others in improvement.

Developing Self

This key area includes developing intrinsic motivation, self-awareness and ability to critically analyze experiences and shift own mindsets. It emphasizes reflective practice, proactive problem-solving and goal-directed planning.

Improving Teaching and Learning

Instructional leadership development is one of the most critical areas and includes: skills to assess and analyse teacher and student performance data, coaching and mentoring teachers towards practices more effective teaching-learning strategies, and reimagining curriculum delivery.

Engaging with Community

A leader’s role goes beyond the walls of the school and is critical in building and learning from networks of other schools and school leaders, as well as engaging with the school community — parents of children who are part of the school, as well as the general community — alumni, local youth, local organizations & businesses, and other institutions.

Developing the Organization

This key area focuses on the school as a system with a lens of improving school structures and processes. There is emphasis on designing and implementing processes to enable peer-learning and collaboration among staff, and managing the organization by strategically allocating resources and support.

The Modes of Development

It is crucial that theory and practice are integrated in leadership development programs — which is most effectively achieved by using process-rich approaches like action plans and case studies. It is process-rich approaches like mentoring, coaching, observation, and feedback that cement learning and predict higher chances of application of learning. Additionally, studies have also pointed out that effectiveness of these approaches is heightened when coupled with other approaches, rather than if implemented in isolation. However — this is often the opposite of what is commonly seen in reality — a study done on support provided for instructional leadership highlighted that less than a third of principals indicated working in districts that offer a combination of all three types of on-the-job support: supervision, mentoring, and professional development (Johnston et al, 2016)

Common modes identified by programs include: walk throughs, engaging with a coach/developer or mentor, partnerships with professional development institutes, forming networks of mentor principals, formal and informal conferences, informal and formal networking, and the development of learning communities. A summary of modes has been consolidated in diagram 2.

Diagram 2 — A summary of common & effective modes of learning

Following is a summary of the key modes:

Formal learning strategies

These include spaces which are specifically designed for learning new knowledge or skill through ‘formal’ experiences like online or offline workshops, trainings, conferences, webinars, as well as going through self-learning materials available online or offline

Reflections

Reflecting on (and in) learning and action is critical in cementing new practices and mindsets. This can be done through discussion or prompts in assignments

Application & Assignments

These are spaces for leaders to implement and apply what they have learnt — this could be in the form of written assignments, or even actually implementing something in their schools

Coaching and Mentoring Support

While form instruction is usually not need-based, coaching and mentoring allow individual contexts and challenges to be discussed and solved. This can be done through whatsapp groups (or similar such channels), Q&A sessions, and one-on-one coaching/mentoring

Peer-learning Networks:

This component has also been consistently highlighted as critical by global research. It includes celebrations/sharing of success stories, Learning Circles (online/offline in the form of Webinars and clinic calls), shadowing mentor leaders, walk-throughs of schools, project-specific collaborations, and group work

Conclusion & Discussion

While it is fairly easy to identify the important aspects of a curriculum and the modes of delivering it — it is far from easy when it comes to implementing these. Common factors that affect ‘ideal’ implementation include — political forces & agendas that come into play, resource constraints, lack of expertise within the system, clashes with other guiding policies, and other context-specific factors. Since there is growing consensus on a vision of effective leadership development programs, the focus needs to shift in terms of tackling the information asymmetry when it comes to implementation — while some institutions have “figured” this out — others are learning the same lessons that these institutions learnt — but decades later. Another area is while there seems to be an “international curriculum” of sorts emerging, this needs to be coupled with an equal focus on contextualization and tailoring to particular needs of school leaders — which poses an especially big challenge for diverse and developing countries like India. However, with growing partnerships both among education departments, and between education departments and non-governmental organizations & institutions — this vision is not far from seeing the light of the day.

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