Intent

Since the turn of the millennium there has been sustained interest in successful school leadership, beginning as an attempt to expand the focus of effective schools research. This has included research dedicated to exploring the area, and the repositioning of other research to contribute to understanding successful school leadership. This presentation provides a history of the development of the area, and explores findings from key studies and reviews to give a sense of the development and possibilities of the study of successful school leadership. 

The field of memory

Successful school leadership, as an area of study within educational leadership, has a substantial history of only two decades (although there are traces back at least 50 years). Within that time there are no ideas from the early formation that have disappeared. Rather they are continuing to evolve, and the area of study remains in the early stages of conceptual development.

The field of presence

It is an emerging area of study that includes within and between country research groups and utilises both qualitative and quantitative research methods, with an emerging preference for mixed-methods. There is agreement about key leadership areas – setting direction, development people, developing the organisation, and improving teaching and learning – and description of several other important areas such as engaging with the multiple contexts within and surrounding schools.

The field of concomitance

Successful school leadership draws from school effectiveness and improvement research, and from the three major educational leadership areas of instructional, transformational and distributed leadership.

Discontinuities and ruptures

From the discussions in the sixties about whether schools made a difference to student outcomes beyond student circumstances, to researching effective schools and effective school leadership, the study of successful school leadership was a shift to consider broader ideas of effectiveness and to consider the quality of schools. The development of an evidence-based exploration of school and leaderships success has led to important and trustworthy understandings about general and contextual leadership ideas and the sustainability of success. 

Critical assumptions or presupposition

As in all areas that explore leadership there are assumptions that leadership exists and is a knowable phenomenon. There is also an assumption that leadership matters to schools and students. Whilst these are listed as assumptions, the overwhelming evidence, some of which is presented in this chapter, is that not only does leadership exist, but that its impact on schools and students is significant.

The presentation reviews nine influential studies/projects and provides critical reflection on these: Study of English Headteachers by Day, Harris, Hadfield, Tolley & Beresford, 2000; Successful school leadership review by Leithwood and Riehl (2003); Leadership and organisational learning study by Mulford & Silins, 2003; Effective Leadership and Pupil Outcomes Project by Day, Sammons, Hopkins, Harris, Leithwood, Gu, Brown, Ahtaridou & Kington, 2009; international project to explore successful school leadership by Caldwell & Harris, 2008; various research by the International Successful School Principalship Project; successful school leadership review by Day, Sammons & Grogan, 2020; USA successful leadership studies by Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom & Anderson, 2010 and Grissom, Egalite and Lindsay, 2021.

The study of successful school leadership has emerged in the two decades since the turn of the millennium. It is an area of study that has several notable research papers and projects, but which also has conceptual and empirical overlap with other areas of educational leadership (like school effectiveness and improvement). Nevertheless, the focus on broad student and school outcomes, and a variety of research methods (case studies and mixed-method inquiries) is providing rich understandings of what successful school leadership is and what it does. There is not a consistent terminology that defines the study area, and it is necessary to consider research that has other labels, such as effective school leadership. Nevertheless, there are substantial projects, such as the ISSPP, which are helping to establish the area as a legitimate addition to the educational leadership field. Future research is likely to involve large, mixed method projects that explore leadership broadly and include principals and other members of the school (e.g. teachers, students, parents, governors) and the wider context (e.g. education systems, communities). These projects will likely be within and across country contexts. There are exciting possibilities for research over the next decade as the study of successful school leadership matures.

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