Session Information
26 SES 05 B, Research on School Leadership Styles
Paper Session
Contribution
There has been increasing research attention on school principals’ skills and competencies rather than on values, beliefs and identities (Lumby & English, 2009). Additionally, educational policy, mainly focused its attention to principals’ technocratic skills and competences (e.g. Day & Leithwood, 2007) rather than their personal perspective, which includes identities, values system etc. Recently, the International Successful School Principalship Project suggested a new strand entitled “Principals’ identities” acknowledging the important principals’ work through a strong and positive sense of professional identity (ISSPP, 2015). School principals’ identities can be classified under the professional identity, social identity and the personal identity (Burke & Stets, 2009; Day et al. 2011) and might influence school leadership practice (Moller et al., 2014). However, researchers and theorists (e.g. Crow, Day & Moller, 2016; Paredes – Scribner & Crow, 2012) have, mostly, focused their attention to the role of professional identities, whilst others (Notman, 2016; Paredes – Scribner & Crow, 2012) have acknowledged that research on professional identities has focused on school teachers rather than school principals. Therefore, more research is needed in order to enrich our understanding about the role of principals’ personal identities and values system during their leadership practice. In fact, Crow et al. (2016) argued that principals’ “identities are also products of their histories and values” (p.7) and at the same time they have recognized that the constructions of principals’ identities are a values–informed process influenced also by the biographical context (Crow et al., 2016). Therefore, the objective of this piece of research was concentrated on principals’ personal identities, through the values system perspective and the effect on their leadership practices, through the various leadership styles. More precisely, four central questions have guided our research: (1) Which are the most important personal values, as perceived by the principals, based on their personal identity? (2) Which are the most important personal values employed by principals during their leadership practice in each leadership style? (3) To what extent principals’ personal identity influences their leadership practice? (4) What kind of communalities and differences are observed on principals’ personal identity, among five leadership styles, during their leadership practice? In order to successfully explore principals’ personal identities through the values system perspective, two concrete theoretical backgrounds have been adapted. More precisely, the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values (Shwartz, 1992) that includes 57 values items, and the Pashiardis – Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework (Pashiardis, 2014; Brauckmann & Pashiardis, 2011) that refers to five specific leadership styles. Researchers such as Whiteman, Paredes Scribner & Crow (2014) supported that identities are not a label placed on people. On the contrary, they have argued that identity “shapes and molds our practices” (p. 579). Therefore, it is very important to gain knowledge on principals’ personal identity around the various European countries in order to enrich our understanding on how principals’ personal perspective affects their leadership practice. Also, nowadays principals’ personal identities, through the values system perspective, are closely connected to the existence and practice of authentic leadership (Bishop, 2013; Normore & Issa Lahera, 2012; Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Some years ago, Lumby and English (2009) referred to the American developmental psychologist Howard Gardner who supported that the capability of leaders’ efforts to manifest their story is the real meaning of authenticity. However, they have argued that the integrity of this authenticity is in question as manifested by the gap between a leader’s words and actions (Lumby & English, 2009). Therefore, since authenticity is closely connected to personal values and, by extension on principals’ identities, it is important to explore the extent to which they influence their leadership practice.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Avolio, J. B. & Gardner, L. W. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The leadership Quarterly, 16, 315-338. Bishop, W.H. (2013). Defining the authenticity in authentic leadership. Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 6(1), 80-86. Brauckmann, S. & Pashiardis, P. (2011). A Validation Study of the Leadership Styles of a Holistic Leadership Theoretical Framework. International Journal of Educational Management, 25 (1) 11-32. Burke, P.J. & Stets, J. E. (2009). Identity theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Crow, G., Day, C. & Mooler, J. (2016). Framing research on school principals’ identities. International Journal of Leadership in Education, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2015.1123299 Day, C. & Leithwood, K. (2007). Successful Principal Leadership in Times of Change: An international perspective. Dordrecht: Springer. Day, C., Sammons, P., Leithwood, K., Hopkins, D., Gu, Q., Brown, E., & Ahtaridou, E. (2011). School leadership and student outcomes: Linking with learning and achievement. Maidenhead: Open University Press. International Succesful School Principalship Project (2015). ISSPP:Multi-Perspective Research on School Principals. UK: The University of Nottingham. Lumby, J. & English, F. (2009), From simplicism to complexity in leadership identity and preparation: exploring the lineage and dark secrets. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 12(2), 95-114. Moller, J., Crow, G., Murakami, E., Skott, P., Tornsen, M. & Johnson, L. (2014, September). Researching Principals' Professional Identities Across National Contexts. Symposium at ECER 2014: The Past, the Present and the Future of Educational Research. Hungary: Budapest. Normore, A.H., & Issa Lahera, A. (2012). Striving for authenticity in program leadership development: Transforming a community of professional practice. Journal of Authentic Leadership in Education, 2(2), 1 -12. Notman, R. (2016). Professional Identity, adaptation and the self: Cases of New Zealand school principals during a time of change. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 1-15. Paredes – Scribner, S. & Monroe Crow, G. (2012). Employing professional identities: Case study of a high school principal in a reform setting. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 11, 243-274. Pashiardis, P. (2014) (Ed.). Modeling School Leadership Across Europe: In Search of New Frontiers. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York, London: Springer. Whiteman, R.S. Paredes – Scribner, S. & M. Crow, G. (2015). Principal professional identity and the cultivation of trust in urban schools. In Khalifa, M., Arnold, N. W., Osanloo, F.A. & Grant, M. C. (Eds), Handbook of Urban Educational Leadership (pp. 578 - 590). USA: Rowman & Littlefield.
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