Session Information
26 SES 13 A, Reframing Leadership and Leading in Education: Diverse Responses from Scholars Across the Field (Part 2)
Symposium continued from 26 SES 12 A
Contribution
Fracture and disruption span the chapters of this Handbook, where authors offer various ways of addressing this. We suggested in chapter 1 that it might be concluded that leadership in education is a fractured field. In this final chapter we locate ourselves as editors not only in this fractured state, also in the disruption that has shaped our world since 2020 through the Covid-19 pandemic. Our narratives which we share in this chapter capture snapshots of our own times, in a similar way to how the chapters, through their fresh approaches to understanding, developing and researching leadership can be seen as snapshots of different aspects of the leadership in education field. A theme of collectivism runs through this chapter as a way of experiencing relational spaces in fragmented and disruptive times. Connected to this is assemblage thinking, which we argue is a way of holding together diverse understandings and practices. An assemblage way of thinking is evident in holding both: disruption-induced disruptive leadership; disrupted leadership and disruptive leadership; distributed leadership and the possibility of hierarchy contributing to the greater good; and, service user (e.g. patient) led leadership and a partnership approach to leadership. In the light of dilemmas and wicked problems, this aligns with the first thread across the narratives - namely, the dialectic reasoning briefly discussed in the final narrative. A non-dialogical approach would argue against the co-existence of disrupted and disruptive leadership, distributed leadership in hierarchical structures, and service user (only) led leadership and a partnership. Dialectic reasoning starts a place of these co-existing simultaneously. A second thread across the narratives is embracing fluidity and what emerges, whether this is anticipated or not. However, no one person can assume that assemblage as a thinking tool is sufficient. The collective of all working together is needed, which is a third thread through the chapters of this Handbook. This brings us to the importance of relational spaces, the space between and inclusive of people, rather focusing only on individual spaces which are the basis for individual agency. Diversity cannot be embraced unless an assemblage way of thinking is active in relational spaces through dialogue, listening and the surfacing and testing of assumptions.
References
Anderson, G. L., & Chang, E. (2019). Competing Narratives of Leadership in School: The Institutional and Discursive Turns in Organizational Theory. In M. Connolly, D. H. Eddy-Spicer, C. James, & S. D. Kruse (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of School Organization (pp. 84–102). SAGE. Stacey, R. (2012) Tools and techniques of leadership and management: meeting the challenge of complexity. London: Routledge. Sallnow, L., Richardson, H., Murray, S. and Kellehear, A. (2016) The impact of a new public health approach to end-of-life care: a systematic review. Palliative Medicine, 30(3), 200-211. Woods, P.A. and Roberts, A. (2018) Collaborative school leadership: a critical guide. London: SAGE. Woods, P. A., Torrance, D., Donnelly, C., Hamilton, T., Jones, K., & Potter, I. (2021). Constructions and purposes of school leadership in the UK. School Leadership & Management, 41(1–2), 152–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2020.1859999 Youngs, H. (2022). Variegated perspectives within distributed leadership: A mix(up) of ontologies and positions in construct development. In F. W. English (Ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Leadership and Management Discourse. Palgrave.
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