UNESCO 2024: “Leadership is at the heart of quality education. There is a growing belief that educational leadership is the second most important factor explaining learning outcomes. Leaders at multiple levels matter, from those within the school, to those outside of the school such as middle managers, and including those outside of education systems in government, or those working on legislature and oversight.”
There are 6 Main styles that can be identified:
- Instructional leadership – focuses on teaching quality through teacher learning and development
- Coaching leadership – focuses on developing individual team members to empower them
- Emotional leadership – brings emphasis on understanding and managing emotions in the workplace
- Democratic leadership – involves the whole team in the planning, implementation and evaluation of school policies and practices
- Constructive leadership – identity an issue and allow the team to create solutions
- Transformational leadership – creates opportunities for conflict solution in the setting
What are the barriers facing school leaders in our current climate?
School leadership is an extremely varied role, demanding multiple skills and attributes, this does leave leaders exposed and vulnerable to external factors and changes. It is no secret that the role of the educational leader has become far more intense and demanding over time, with increasing pressure on performance from governing bodies, staffing issues and an ever-changing curriculum, as evidenced in Education Supports 2024 Wellbeing index (https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/ftwl04cs/twix-2024.pdf).
So with these pressures evident, how do you best tackle the role?
There is very limited support for school teams but it is there – ongoing personal development, consistent work-life balance and strong trust foundations within setting communities and just some ways of developing a culture of resilience and understanding Roffey, Sue., 2011.
In their blog, Joseph Lathan of The University of San Diego identifies ‘10 Traits of Successful School Leaders’, here we will discuss their findings and give you some tips and links to help you identify areas for improvement and action them at your setting.
Community
Foster a strong community by developing the pillars of trust, communication and teamwork throughout your setting.
Offer CPD opportunities
Allow your team to grow and develop by continually supporting their continued personal development (use local teaching hubs you can find yours here: https://find-a-teaching-school-hub.education.gov.uk/search).
Use an evidence-based approach
Gather data from multiple sources to support your assessments, decision making and whole school strategies (the EEF is a great place to find evidence: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/)
Have long term plans and Goals
Use SMART Goals and planning tools to help you to achieve the outcomes you want (we have a done for you toolkit for this: https://community.amhie.com/smart-goals-template/)
Promote inclusivity
Be mindful of the range within your community when you communicate, when you develop materials and when you make decisions regarding timetables etc – are you reaching the full audience? If the answer is no, how can you adapt to increase your audience and include all cohorts in your community?
Be passionate
Just keep this at the forefront of what you do, it’s easy to get lost when things are difficult.
Allow risk taking
Giving people the option to fail helps to foster a culture of development and learning which embeds through the whole community.
Be a role model
When others see that your success and achievement is centred in your values, wisdom and knowledge, they will be encouraged to emulate those values.
Commit
Stay in your role long term so you see the changes you made and the influence you have had pay off – there’s no better encouragement than seeing your own hard work come to fruition.
Never stop learning
Always be open to new ideas, thoughts and information – this will support your resilience.
Reference/Further reading:
Ellen Daniëls, Annie Hondeghem, Filip Dochy, A review on leadership and leadership development in educational settings. Educational Research Review, Volume 27, 2019, Pages 110-125, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2019.02.003
Gurr *, D. (2004). ICT, Leadership in Education and E‐leadership. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 25(1), 113–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630042000178518
Anderson, Matthew. “Transformational Leadership in Education: A Review of Existing Literature.” International Social Science Review 93, no. 1 (2017): 1–13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/90012919.
Toprak, M. (2020). Leadership in Educational: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Educational Administration, Management, and Leadership, 1(2), 85-96. https://doi.org/10.51629/ijeamal.v1i2.10
Gunter, Helen. (2001) Critical approaches to leadership in education, The Journal of Educational Enquiry Vol. 2 No. 2 (2001) https://ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/EDEQ/article/view/583
Toprak, Mehmet. (2020). Leadership in Educational: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Educational Administration, Management, and Leadership. 85-96. 10.51629/ijeamal.v1i2.10 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348801441_Leadership_in_Educational_A_Systematic_Review
Woods, David. (2020) ‘The Nine Pillars of Great School Leadership’ https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/college-social-sciences/education/events/9-pillars-of-great-school-leadership.pdf
Prof. Ruth Lupton. (2023) ‘School Leadership in Current Times: As School Leaders see it’ https://neu.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-11/Research%20document%20on%20school%20leadership%20in%20UK.pdf
Education Support Teacher Wellbeing Index 2024 https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/ftwl04cs/twix-2024.pdf
Roffey, Sue. “Developing positive relationships in schools.” Positive relationships: Evidence based practice across the world. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2011. 145-162.
Joseph Lathan, PhD, University of San Diego 2025 https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/effective-educational-leadership/
Megan Tschannen-Moran 2004. “Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools” Jossey-Bass
Crawford, Megan. “Developing as an educational leader and manager.” Developing as an Educational Leader and Manager (2014): 1-232.
Fosco, Sebrina L. Doyle. “Educational leader wellbeing: A systematic review.” Educational Research Review 37 (2022): 100487.
We hope this Toolkit has helped give you some extra reading and information about educational leadership.
Got a suggestion for something you want us to include? Need some additional help? We can give you and your team the training and support they need to improve, just contact us to see what we can offer to help you now.
Get in touch with our team and have a chat about your needs info@rootofit.com 02381 120010.