Leadership and Management Development in Education

Citation

Oplatka, I. (2009), "Leadership and Management Development in Education", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 No. 4, pp. 529-531. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230910967518

Around a century ago, during the first decades of educational administration (EA) as a field of study it was substantially oriented to normative concerns, taught by former superintendents or principals who delivered their practical knowledge and wisdom to prospective administrators. For many in those days, the field's purpose was quite simple; the preparation and development of principal‐candidates. Unfortunately, however, this purpose has not received much attention in the following years, as only a scant portion of the papers published in the field have dealt with administrator preparation programmes, as Murphy and Vriesenga (2006) maintained. In this sense, Bush's work is an exceptional and welcomed addition to the literature; it accumulates systematically the current international knowledge base and research on the development of educational leaders and suggests new directions and thoughts in this area of study.

Bush organizes the text into nine chapters. Chapter one sets the stage for the discussion on preparation and development programs in EA, by making the readers acquainted with major concepts and trends in the study of school leadership. The author briefly summarizes features of effective leadership, highlights the importance of an articulated vision in leader's success, distinguishes educational leadership from management and links between recent decentralization reforms and the emergence of school‐based management and school leadership. This introductory chapter ends with some insights into the potential impact of effective leaders upon school improvement and outcomes, despite the methodological difficulties to construct a clear link between these two organizational dimensions.

The preliminary part continues in chapter two which is devoted to a concise, in some way even historical, description of major models of leadership in the educational literature. According to the author, the chapter aims at developing some awareness of alternative approaches to leadership that is essential in order to inform the design and development of leadership preparation programs, a very reasonable line given the need to link between the theoretical and social idealized features of leadership and the contents of these programs. The justification for leadership programs is further discussed in chapter three. Due to the expanded role of school leadership and the increasing complexity of school contexts in our era the author advocates the need for both prospective and acting principals in receiving effective leadership preparation programs that make a difference. Given the many countries on the globe lacking formal preparation programs for newly appointed school leaders, the author wisely devotes several pages to elaborate on the advantages and benefits of this sort of programs.

Whereas the first chapters display evidence advocating the need to establish specialist preparation programs for school leaders, the fourth chapter charts the main components of these programs in a way that contributes both to researchers, policy‐makers and program designers in higher education institutions. But, instead of taking on a euro‐centric standpoint, the author chooses very reasonably to base this chapter on international research. He examines the content of leadership preparation programs and the nature of the learning process for school leaders in nine countries, including USA, Canada, France, Norway, Finland, South Africa, Austria, Singapore, and China. Based on these and similar studies, the second part of this important, practice‐oriented chapter exhibits the major contents commonly found in preparation programs worldwide (e.g. instructional leadership, law, finance), and the main teaching methods in these programs (e.g. mentoring, coaching, e‐learning, school visits).

The international standpoint the author adopts is further developed in chapter 5 in which the reader realizes, for the first time in the book, that there is a distinction between developed and developing countries in terms of principal succession, recruitment, preparation, induction and certification. Yet, even among the developed countries, some of them the richest in the world, there is much diversity related, at least in part, to cultural and contextual scripts. The author divides the educational systems of these countries into centralized versus decentralized ones, thereby bringing up the varied conjectures about the nature of schooling, the role of educational leaders and the place of formal preparation programs. Loyal to his line throughout the book, the author is keen to demonstrate the great significance of a specific preparation for school leaders, as educational leadership is widely recognized nowadays as a specialized profession separated, almost entirely, from teaching.

From the varied mosaic of leadership preparation programs, the author elaborates in chapter six on the program in his own country, the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) founded in 2000, for its “unique combination of features,” as Bolam (2004, p. 260) commented. An historical background of leadership development in the UK, probably for international readers, opens this chapter, followed by a discussion in the conceptual framework guiding the College's work. But, the author, who, to the best of my knowledge, was one of the founders of this college, takes on in his integrity the role of a critical beholder, providing the reader not only with the strength of this new College, but also with its weaknesses and limitations. In a sense, I found this stance very helpful and challenging, especially for those of us whose countries have not yet established a similar College.

Most interesting and, in my view, commendable, is chapter seven that deals with leadership and leadership development in developing countries, topics on which our knowledge and research is very limited (Oplatka, 2006). Subsequent to a discussion in the demographic, economic, social, cultural and educational contexts of these countries, the reader is familiarised with the many distinctions between developed and developing countries in terms of principal requirement, training, quality, selection and induction. The conclusion of this chapter is that most of the newly appointed principals in developing countries have not been adequately prepared for their job. Some suggestions for in‐service trainings for acting principals in these countries are provided at the end of this chapter.

In chapter eight the author further promotes his argument in favour of specific leadership preparation programs by addressing the intended impact of leadership development and examining the evidence that preparation programs contribute to better leadership practice and schools. Given the complexity of cause‐effect relations in education, as well as the limited research on the outcomes of leadership development programs, the author seem to face many challenges in this chapter. He commences to “decipher the code” by discussing the importance of devising clear purposes as a basis on which one can formulate criteria for assessing the value impact of a certain program and its content, methods and activities. The rest of the chapter provides designers and managers of leadership preparation programs with varied measures to evaluate the impact of their programs. Yet, the author draws attention to the difficulty to objectively assess this impact due to conceptual and methodological weaknesses, calling for further global investigations in this area.

The last chapter sums up the major points arising from the book chapters in a form of ponderings. The author poses several questions for future design of leadership development programs, such as content or process based programs, the location of the leadership learning activities, individual or group learning, the leadership of the programs, and the most effective leadership learning processes. Following the questions addressed, a model for leadership development during the career cycle is suggested. Any leaders and designers of future leadership development programs will find this model a very good starting point to plan their impending program.

The text is well‐organized and well‐structured enabling both scholars and practitioners to benefit from the host of ideas, insights and empirical data arising in the book chapters. This is a book the reviewer found very useful and illuminating during his membership in a national committee aimed at reforming the pre‐service training for school principals in the country. The book is highly recommended for instructors who teach in EA programs and professional development courses for principals, who are interested in gaining more holistic knowledge about effective leadership development worldwide, as well as for policy‐makers and superintendents.

No text is perfect, however, and the author is strongly recommended to consider including further discussions (in a second edition) about the development of emotional understanding and intelligence among principal‐candidates and acting educational leaders, about special courses for women and ethnic minorities, and about the distinctive nature of internships within the leadership development programs. These additions may enrich the text and provide insight into the complexity of leadership development in our era of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity.