Marketing the School ‘Revisited’: The Complexity of Leadership Dilemmas

The 1980s and 1990s saw a significant phase of educational marketization reform in several countries. Schools began to operate within a ‘market’, and ‘marketing’ became more important. Research showed that teachers and school leaders were largely hostile to this ‘alien’ area of schooling. School leadership in this environment became more complex and stressful. Literature began to identify leadership tensions, conflicts and dilemmas. This chapter ‘revisits’ some of the more significant research at the time and examines some of the dilemmas posed by the need to market the school. The dilemma framework offered by Wildy and Louden (2000) is used to explore three key areas: accountability, efficiency and autonomy. The chapter offers insights into how this topic can be revitalized and explored within the operation of ‘new’ leadership paradigms such as ‘distributed leadership’ and ‘destructive leadership’. The chapter concludes by discussing how the topic of dilemmas can be taken forward.