Change is the continuous and complex state of today’s and tomorrow’s education where reforms, reshaping as well as totally unexpected events increasingly emerge (Mullen & Kochan, 2000). Consequently, change causes ambiguous problems that relate to large social, political, economic and cultural challenge. These kinds of problems, connected to contradictory knowledge and other demanding problems are called ‘wicked’ (Rittel & Weber, 1973). One example of wicked problems could be the current European-wide refugee problem that will have severe consequences when the refugee children and adolescents enter the diverse European educational systems.

Recent research has shown that educational leadership has an indirect but crucial impact on students’ learning processes, motivation, evaluation, qualifications, and access to working life (Hallinger & Heck & 2011; Lomos et al., 2011). Hence, in solving wicked problems, leadership has to take a centre stage. However, the ‘heroic’ and traditional ways to lead education are not any more adequate. In order to manage the inherent increasing challenges and solve wicked problems, new kind of leadership is urgently needed.

It is widely argued that supporting learners only by individual leaders is not anymore enough. Instead, collective working is increasingly required also in leadership (Crawford, 2012; Jäppinen, 2015). The kind of new and innovative leadership that is required is called here collaborative leadership (Jäppinen, 2015; Jäppinen & Ciussi, 2015; Jäppinen, Leclerc & Tubin, 2015). Collaborative leadership denotes that educational organizations are responsibly led by leaders, managers, the entire staff, and other necessary stakeholders to a jointly defined direction (ibid.). Jäppinen with her colleagues (ibid.) has presented ‘ingredients’ of collaborative leadership that need to manifest simultaneously: First, collaborative leadership means synergy between different stakeholders so that the sum of what was co-created is more than the parts; it implies shared power according to everyone’s roles and duties; and it creates a change that comes from inwards of the community in terms of new and innovative mind-sets, attitudes, and activities.

The benefits of collaborative leadership are all stakeholders’ ownership, collective agency, and empowerment including students as well (ibid.). However, it is suggested that within the unexpected and rapid change such collaborative leadership that innovatively, synergetic and by shared power produces better learning is not only theoretically lacking of study but also underdeveloped in practice. For this need, the symposium presents an international study project of “Dynamics and processes of collaborative leadership – solving wicked problems in education” (LED) (2015-2019) that aims at show how 21 organizations representing different educational levels in six countries of Finland, Canada, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand and Sweden solve their wicked problems through collaborative leadership. The LED project’s overarching research question is what kinds of dynamics and processes are to be found in international educational contexts when solving wicked problems through collaborative leadership?

The symposium will include 4 papers. The first paper by Professor Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen (Finland) presents an overview of the LED project as well as tentative quantitative and qualitative results of the collaborative processes in the target organizations. The second paper by Doctoral Student Hoda Noroozi (Finland) introduces the theoretical background of wicked problems and their manifestation in six LED organizations. The third paper by Assistant Professor Andréanne Gelinas-Proulx and Professor Martine Leclerc (Canada) introduces a LED case study by means of a Canadian secondary school. The fourth paper by Senior Researcher Dorit Tubin (Israel) will present a pre-LED case study from Israel where a cultural perspective for solving wicked problems is taken on focus.

Crawford, M. (2012). Solo and distributed leadership: definitions and dilemmas. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40, 610-662. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (2011). Exploring the journey of school improvement: classifying and analyzing patterns of change in school improvement processes and learning outcomes. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 22(1), 1–27. Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169. Jäppinen, A.-K. (2015). Successful together! Ten keys for collaborative leadership. Bryssel: VSKO. Jäppinen, A.-K. & Ciussi, M. (2015). Indicators of improved learning contexts: a collaborative perspective on educational leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education. (Published online 16 Mar 2015) Jäppinen, A.-K., Leclerc, M. & Tubin, D. (2015.) Collaborative dynamics as the core of professional learning communities beyond culture and context: Evidence from Canada, Finland, and Israel. School Improvement and School Effectiveness. (Published online 14 Jul 2015) Lomos, C., Hofman, R., & Bosker, R. (2011). Professional communities and student achievement: a meta-analysis. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 22, 121-148 Mullen, C. A., & Kochan, F. K. (2000). Creating a collaborative leadership network: an organic view of change. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 3, 183–200.