Although we know that school principals play a crucial role in schoolwide efforts to raise standards of teaching and learning, evidence of what makes successful leaders remains elusive. The most popular theories are the transactional and the transformational models identified more than 20 years ago (Bums, 1978) and lately reinvented through such terms as liberation (Tampoe, 1998), educative (Duignan & McPherson, 1992), invitational (Stoll & Fink, 1996), and moral leadership (Sergiovanni, 1992). Successful leaders not only set direction, organize, monitor, and build relationships with the school community, but they also model values and practices consistent with those of the school so that "purposes which may have initially seemed to be separate become fused" (Sergiovanni, 1995, p. 119).
The problem with these theories, and those borrowed or adapted from studies of business leadership, is that they are based on either an observation of or the self-report by leaders, who are not necessarily successful. Few school studies have sought information from heads recognized as effective; fewer still have sought educated opinions from those who know the most about the heads and who have experienced the realities of their leadership in times of change—such as students, staff, governors, and parents.
A Leadership Study
In 1998, the National Association of Headteachers, the largest association of headteachers in the United Kingdom, commissioned such a 360-degree study. Twelve heads (the equivalent of principals in U.S. schools) were selected from schools of different sizes; in different operational phases; and in a range of geographical, economic, and sociocultural settings. All the schools received a positive inspection report from the Office for Standards in Education, the government's independent external inspection service, particularly with regard to leadership; all were performing better than average; and the heads had good reputations among their peers. Gender and experience also factored in to match the national distribution. Thus, there were six female and six male principals whose experience of principalship in their schools ranged from two to six years.
- values led,
- people centered,
- achievement oriented,
- inward and outward facing, and
- able to manage a number of ongoing tensions and dilemmas.
The heads' core personal values were care, equity, high expectations, and achievement. These values were clear to and shared by the majority of the school constituencies and drove the life of the school. All heads monitored standards in the school, kept ahead of the game so that their schools responded rather than reacted to new external demands, tested external demands against their own standards, and minimized bureaucratic demands on staff. The heads promoted improvement-oriented, collaborative school cultures that emphasized continuing professional development that met both organizational and individual needs.
All staff noted the time and care that heads gave to their work and the way they modeled their values. The heads themselves were clearly strategic, reflective practitioners, exercising a range of inter- and intrapersonal skills. They were able to analyze, evaluate, and communicate with a range of agencies, both locally and nationally.
Leadership Tensions
Alongside these positive traits were ongoing problems. Heads worked long hours and succeeded partly through the unsung support of external networks of colleagues, friends, and family. The main factors for their success, however, were their personal values and their ability to maintain and develop learning and achieving cultures while they managed ongoing tensions and dilemmas. Some of these dilemmas follow.
Leadership versus management. Leadership is essentially building and maintaining a sense of vision, culture, and interpersonal relationships, whereas management is coordinating, supporting, and monitoring organizational activities. To perform both roles successfully requires a careful balancing act. As an infant school (preschool) deputy head said, Leadership is about having vision and articulating, ordering priorities, getting others to go with you, constantly reviewing what you are doing, and holding onto things you value. Management is about the functions, procedures, and systems by which you realize the vision.
Development versus maintenance. A primary head put it this way: "If I don't develop others, the school won't develop. So that's my priority. Other jobs can be delegated, but not this one." A tension exists between the amount of time and energy that heads devote to system maintenance and the amount that they devote to ensuring that staff are always competent, challenged, and supported in seeking higher standards.
Internal versus external change. An increase in the external scrutiny of schools creates its own tensions. "The pressure is from outside, but I have to manage the pressure inside," said a secondary head. Headteachers found themselves positioned uneasily between those forces outside schools who were instigating and promoting changes and their own staff who ultimately had to implement them. Heads demonstrated their leadership by selecting new initiatives, providing relative support for their implementation, knowing how others tackled initiatives, and adapting initiatives to their particular values and circumstances.
Autocracy versus autonomy. One primary deputy head stated, "Although we can work closely, there has to be a time when decisions are taken, and [our head] has to say whether we can or cannot do this." In school cultures of collaboration, decision making is no longer the exclusive preserve of headteachers, yet heads remain responsible and accountable for the schools' success. A key leadership skill is the ability to manage the boundaries of autocratic and democratic decision making.
Personal time versus professional tasks. The increasing external requirements on schools have led many heads to commit more and more personal time to school-related business. One primary head noted, "I work at least 60 hours a week. . . . It worries me because I don't know how long I can go on putting in the amount of energy." Although most heads in the study found ways of managing these intensifying demands, the personal opportunity costs were universally high and, long-term, potentially damaging.
Personal values versus institutional imperatives. Although little evidence in the study suggested that opposing sets of values existed within the schools, tensions did arise from externally generated pressures and definitions of efficiency and effectiveness, which were perceived as a challenge to strongly held people-centered values. One primary teacher said about the school's head, He holds traditional human values—care for people and the community and giving back to society the benefits of what you have been given at school. You are a better person if you achieve academically, but that is only part of being a balanced person.
Leadership in small versus large schools. Heads in small primary schools were disadvantaged on two counts. Because they had regular, significant teaching responsibilities, they were sometimes unable to fulfill their strategic leadership roles satisfactorily. A primary head noted, "It's all the stress of planning, preparing, and coordinating as a class teacher that is too much." The breadth of the curriculum also provided additional demands on the small number of staff.
Develop versus dismiss. For heads who have to make decisions about teaching standards, allowing poor teachers to continue teaching creates a leadership dilemma, cutting across the heads' personal frameworks of values and beliefs and their ideological and educative commitments to the development of everyone in the school community. One infant school head stated, You can support somebody who is incompetent for as long as you like, but there comes a point when you know that it is not going to make any difference, particularly if they have been doing it for a long time.
Dismissing a staff member touches the culture of the school, the staff morale, and the nature of the relationship between leader and staff. The heads in the study, however, had not shrunk from making such tough decisions, illustrating the clear, albeit painful, boundary that they must draw at key times between personal and professional relationships, which are at the heart of the educational health of school communities.
Power with versus power over. The basis of this dilemma is the extent to which similar and dissimilar values can be reconciled. The heads in this study achieved a balance between involving staff in decisions and providing a clear direction forward. But they were aware that such involvement might well lead to demands for a bigger say in decisions and that this might challenge their right to always make the final decision. As a primary teacher said, We are leaders in our own little domain, and sometimes it's hard to accept the overall leadership . . . because you think you have got a better way of doing it.
Subcontracting versus mediation. This final dilemma reflects the position in which most heads in the study found themselves: They were legally responsible for implementing externally imposed change, some of which challenged their own moral purposes, core values, practices, and analysis of the needs of their particular school. One head noted, At the end of the day, the head has to have integrity and stick to core values and beliefs. It is important that the head can demonstrate integrity in the face of adversity.
The heads had not become sub-contractors or unthinking links in a chain leading from those who developed policy to those who received it. Neither were they subversives, attempting to undermine the authority of policy imperatives. Rather, they managed changes with integrity and skill, integrating them into the vision, values, and practices of their schools.
Leadership Training and Development
The characteristics of successful leaders and their ability to be people-centered while managing a number of tensions highlight the complexity of values-led contingency leadership exercised by successful heads. The study illustrates that no neat solutions exist to situations that hold so many variables; individual and collective value systems rather than instrumental, bureaucratic concerns define and drive successful leaders.
Leaders in this study were reflective, caring, and highly principled people who emphasized the human dimension of the management enterprise. They placed a high premium on personal values and were more concerned with cultural than with structural change. They had all moved beyond a narrow, managerial view of their role to a more holistic, values-led approach guided by personal experience and preference.
What, then, are the implications for leadership training and development? Nations across the world are extending their provision of training and development programs. In England, the establishment by the Teacher Training Agency of programs for aspiring heads, new heads, and serving heads shows the importance that the government attaches to effective leadership, further underlined by the establishment of the high-profile, innovative National College for School Leadership. But even the most recent training programs fail to address the key themes that have emerged from the study.
Because values are central to successful leadership, reflection on these values must be central to training. Alongside must be a focus on critical thinking, emotional and cognitive development, and intra- as well as interpersonal skill development. Recognizing the intimate link between the personal and the professional, between the development of the individual and of the organization, is paramount. Finally, problem solving and managing competing forces must be key components of leadership training if schools are to become high-achieving learning communities. Rational models that focus on the development of only behavioral skills and competencies are insufficient to meet the needs of those aspiring, new, and experienced heads who wish to become and remain successful in the changing times.
