“Everyday we find calls for more leadership in business, government, public administration and the non-profit sector. Leadership is seen as a catch-all solution for nearly any problem, irrespective of context” (Alvesson & Spicer 2012: 367-368).

There is an espoused need for professionalization of school leaders. Requirements, expectations, and advices are infinite, e.g. communication skills, strategic view, empathy etc. Nearly as many definitions of leadership exist. The concept is hard to categorize – leadership/management, transactional, transformational, distributed, instructional, moral etc. Simultaneously, there is a growing supply of programs for training current and future school leaders, and for school leaders in many countries completion of a formal education is a requirement. These conditions may be found in many European countries influenced by some variants of NPM.

Our purpose is not to construct a new theory or add a new dimension or category to existing theories, but to construct an approach for studying the various requirements, expectations etc. and using that approach to analyze how school leaders interpret their day-to-day challenges as well as political requirements.

The expectations and requirements stem from school internal as well as school external sources, and they are related to purposes as well as processes in schooling. Based on these dimensions, we have derived four discourses using literature, documents and our own empirical study. We assume that school leadership is not a given entity, but a role, position, and subject ascribed in the actual situation. These discourses are not mutual exclusive, and we perceive them as dominating, but not all including. Others might exist as well.

The four discourses are characterized as follows.

One discourse is related to school internal aspects and we label it the ‘personhood leadership’. This discourse is characterized by personal competencies, skills, and attributes – universal (one may be leader in any context). It has its origins in the ‘natural born leader’, in inner values and gut feelings.

Authentic leadership is important, and has references to charismatic and transformational leadership. School leaders attempt to find legitimacy in personal emotions and charisma. Leaders may be or may learn to be authentic, to communicate etc.

Another discourse we call ‘The professional leadership’. Most school leaders still have their background in the teaching profession, and leaders are more concerned with schooling (what is the purpose with schooling?). This dimension is closer to the core task, often with a pedagogical point of departure. We see formal leadership positions in schools dominated by professionals (Mintzberg) and a greater emphasis on formal education and training. There are references to distributed, instructional, autonomy/self-leadership). It is an internal perspective, and seeks to achieve internal legitimacy measured in professional values.

The two last discourses are related to external factors. The third discourse has focus on external requirements. Education is to a larger extent perceived as a competitive resource. There are more explicit agency relations, and an emphasis on standards and indicators (e.g. PISA), both inside schools and between schools and authorities (e.g. performance related pay). It is more leading on behalf of others. It is called designer leadership – one can bye a leader (Gronn 2003). It has its references to some versions of instructional leadership (teaching for test), and leaders seeks legitimacy among external authorities and stakeholders.

 The last discourse we call the ‘resource based leadership’. It is developed due to structural conditions given by greater financial responsibilities (students are customers and basis for earnings) and marketization (a business-like approach with mergers, larger enterprises etc.) and only indirect derived from an educational context. The leadership tasks are not determined by authorities, but they are emerging via the context. Leaders seek legitimacy in market and efficiency.

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