The Value of School Leadership Capacity for School Development in an Icelandic Elementary School.

Author(s):

Sigríður Margrét Sigurðardóttir

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 03 B,

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-25

14:00-15:30

Room:

U40 SALI 26, Metsätalo

Chair:

Helen Wildy

Contribution

This paper deals with the findings drawn from a qualitative study conducted in one elementary school in Iceland. The aim of the research was to investigate the coherence between leadership and leadership capacity and school development. This was done by an inquiry into how and to what extent leadership capacity had been built up in school improvement projects in this particular school.

Lambert (2003a, 2006) defines leadership as a reciprocal, purposeful and collective learning. In this sense leadership is not associated to one or few persons but is a joint property of groups within an organization, or property of an organization as a whole, where all those who are concerned develop their leadership skills. In this light, leadership capacity is defined as a broad-based skillful engagement in the work of leadership. A clear connection is made between the leadership capacity of the school and the school development, since the former is seen as a necessary basis for sustainable school development.

Seen as a broad-based engagement in the work of leadership, leadership capacity of a school also requires a common vision, providing harmony of the school. It demands that decisions are built on research and inquiries and on real needs and conditions and that roles and responsibilities are collaborative and lead to joint responsibilities. It demands evaluation of one´s own work as well as the work of others, as a natural part of every days work and requires good or constantly better student achievement (Lambert, 2003a). Leadership capacity is therefore built on teacher leadership as well as distributed leadership in general and is strongly associated with professional learning communities (Harris, 2008, Lambert 2003b).

The study used two theoretical frameworks developed by Lambert (2003a, 2006) to evaluate the leadership capacity of schools. The first takes to the overall leadership capacity of the school (Lambert 2003a, 2006). Hence, special attention was given to the contribution and participation of different groups within the school community in the progress of school development. This included leaders, teachers, supporting staff, students and parents as well as individual leadership behavior. The second framework looks at the personal attributes and the leadership behavior of the principal, since his contribution is seen as the foundation for leadership capacity to take place (Lambert 2006). This paper takes more to the first framework and the findings regarding the importance of leadership capacity of the different groups that form the school community for developing leadership capacity of the whole school and its meaning for school development.

No other research has been made in Iceland on leadership capacity in elementary schools or its connection to school development and therefore interesting to do so. Neither have those frameworks been used before in Iceland. The results are in many ways in agreement with results of similar studies abroad, including Lambert´s (2006) studies, and indicate the importance of leadership capacity and the usefulness of this framework for evaluating leadership capacity of schools in general.

Method

Information was gathered during the school year 2008–2009 about planned improvement efforts in the school from the time they commenced, ten years earlier, until the present day. A school was chosen that had the reputation as well as research indications of having made a positive shift in its culture and educational goals and where there had been the same principal from the beginning of this shift to the present day. A qualitative case study method was used (Hitchcock and Hughes, 1995) in combination with grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Data was collected by observations, examining documents, semi-structured interviews and a survey. Data was collected from a wide range of respondents from all sectors of the school community.

Expected Outcomes

The findings indicate that the school has come close to developing high leadership capacity but that it varies between groups and persons. There has been a shift in the culture of the school towards a much stronger culture and clearer sense of common purpose built on trust, respect and common values. Leaders, teachers and students are involved in collective learning trough purposeful discussion and developmental work. High leadership capacity is found among leaders, teachers and students but to a lesser degree among support staff and parents. The findings indicate that this variation is associated with the degree to which those groups and individuals have been involved in the development of the school. The findings also indicate that the personal attributes and leadership behavior of the principal is of great importance in the process of developing leadership capacity. The findings indicate that to maintain and develop the leadership capacity of the school further it is important to set clear goals considering the leadership of teachers and students. Further it points out the importance of developing ways in which support staff and parents are granted access to the development of the school, in the same way as teachers and leaders are.

References

Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. London: Thousand Oaks. Harris, A. (2008). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow´s leaders. London: Routledge. Hitchcock, G. and Hughes, D. (1995). Research and the teacher. A qualitative introduction to school-based research (2. ed.). London: Routledge. Lambert, L. (2003a). Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. Alexandria, VA: ASCS Association for supervision and curriculum development. Lambert, L. (2003b). Leadership redefined: An evocative context for teacher leadership. School Leadership and Management, 23(4), 421–430. Lambert, L. (2006). Lasting leadership: A study of high leadership capacity schools. The Educational Forum, 70(3), 238–254.

Author Information

Sigríður Margrét Sigurðardóttir

University of Akureyri

Education

Akureyri

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