Multi-Perspective Study of Effective School Leaders

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Grounding Knowledge of Schools in Stakeholder Realities: A Multi-

Perspective Study of Effective School Leaders
Christopher Day ; Alma Harris ;Mark Hadfield
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Stakeholder Realities: A Multi-Perspective Study of Effective School Leaders', School Leadership & Management, 21: 1,
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School Leadership & Management, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 19–42, 2001
Grounding Knowledge of Schools

in Stakeholder Realities: A
Multi-Perspective Study of
Effective School Leaders
Christopher DAY, Alma HARRIS & Mark HADFIELD
University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB,
UK
Downloaded By: [Universidad de Sevilla] At: 18:02 19 April 2010
ABSTRACT Leadership provided by the headteacher is widely acknowledged to be a crucial

variable in determining the effectiveness of schools. However, the majority of leadership studies
consist of either surveys or interviews which the researcher has conducted with head teachers or
case studies written by the head teachers which draw heavily upon their own experience, and
as such are essentially ‘autobiographical’ in the perspective they provide on leadership in schools
(Ribbins & Sherratt, 1992). The objectives of this article are to: set out a new model of effective
school leadership based on recently completed empirical research; demonstrate how the multi-per-
spective methodology adopted contributed to a critique of existing models of leadership and the
development of a new grounded model and discuss the analytical issues raised by the
multi-perspective methodology which involved all the stakeholders in a school community.
Theoretical Framework
The emerging picture of school leadership in the late 1990s in all countries has
become increasingly complex. In the UK the pace of change shows no sign of
slackening as the Government continues to impose new demands upon schools and
to expect results within relatively short time-scales. Much of the impetus for
implementing successive national reforms rests primarily with the leaders of individ-
ual institutions. It has been argued that the particular view of leadership which the
nature, direction and pace of reform implicitly endorses as effective, has become
increasingly managerialist (Gunter 1997; Slee et al., 1998). Ball (1987) suggests that
the dominant discourse of leadership embodies direct control (‘old managerialism’)
and people-centred management (‘new managerialism’). However, it has been
claimed that the emphasis upon the ‘monitorial’ role of ‘managing directors’ has
given headteachers less time to perform the role of ‘leading professional’ (Pollard et
al. 1994). This claim directly contradicts the popular academic research view that
the headteacher’s main role is to in uence the quality of teaching and learning in the
school through purposeful ‘transformative leadership’ (Leithwood & Jantzi 1990;
ISSN 1363-2434 print; 1364-2626 online/01/010019-24 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/13632430120033027
20 C. Day et al.
Fullan, 1992), to articulate a vision and to promote shared ownership (Louis &
Miles 1990; Blase & Anderson 1995; Starratt 1991). In this literature the search
continues for a model of effective leadership which is suited to a post-modern
context.
Recently, leadership studies have focussed upon values—the ‘moral purposes’
and moral craft of leadership (Sergiovanni 1992; Tom 1984); the roles of leaders in
creating a ‘community of learners’ (Barth 1990; Senge 1990); and the capacities of
leaders to ‘make a difference’ through their ability to ‘transform’ (Sergiovanni 1995;
Leithwood et al., 1999) or ‘liberate’ (Tampoe 1998) rather than simply ‘transact’.
The most popular theories are located in the ‘transactional’ and ‘transformational’
models identi ed more than twenty years ago (Burns 1978) and lately reinvented
through such terms as ‘liberation’ (Tampoe 1998), ‘educative’ (Duignan & Mcpher-
son 1992), ‘invitational’ (Stoll & Fink 1996) and ‘moral’ leadership (Sergiovanni
1992). What is clear from these, and the effective schools literature, is that success-
ful leaders not only set direction, organise and monitor, build relationships with the
school community and are people-centred but they also model values and practices
consistent with those of the school (Sergiovanni 1995: 119).
This research study (commissioned by the National Association of Headteach-
ers) is one of the most recent studies of leadership in the United Kingdom. When
work commenced on the project, few recent studies were in existence that had
attempted to identify the key components of effective school leadership through the
eyes of those who experience and witness it, whilst also relating analyses of multi-
perspective grounded data to existing theoretical and empirical literature.
Research Methodology
On the evidence of the literature it would appear that previous research has relied
too heavily on headteachers to be the primary source of data on leadership in
schools. However, there is evidence to suggest that when researchers turn their
attention to alternative perspectives they prove to be rich sources of data. For
example, studies of pupils’ views about school (Babad et al. 1991; SooHoo 1993;
Rudduck et al. 1996; Smees & Thomas 1998), reveal that they ‘can be both astute
and articulate observers of the school environment’ (Smees & Thomas 1998). By
failing to draw upon the different ‘perspectives’ provided by students, teachers and
others, previous research has clearly ignored a plethora of evidence about both the
‘production’ and the ‘consumption’ of leadership in schools. Few studies have
sought information from heads recognized as effective; fewer still have sought
educated opinion from those who know most about them and who have experienced
the realities of their leadership in times of change i.e., their students, staff, governors
and parents. As a response to this, this research study was designed to consider
effective leadership from multiple perspectives within the school organisation.
The project adopted the view that since the workings of the real world (even at
the scale of a very small primary school) can be bewilderingly complex hence, no
single observer, not even the most perceptive of head teachers, is restricted to
viewing from a particular perspective or ‘angle of observation’ (Schatzman &
Effective School Leaders 21
Strauss 1973). The opinions of any individual, therefore, are inherently ‘biased’ by
the position from which they have observed events in what Shimahara (1990) has
called ‘contexts in process’. The research on which this report is based, therefore,
was designed to capture the ‘silent voices’ (SooHoo 1993) of authentic sources of
data about leadership in the case study schools on the assumption that new insights
would inevitably arise if all too familiar situations were viewed afresh from ‘new
angles’ (Schatzman and Strauss 1973; Morgan 1993). In addition to enabling the
project to draw upon hitherto untapped and highly fruitful sources of evidence, the
adoption of this multiple perspectives approach made it possible to compare data
collected from different perspectives and sources for the purposes of triangulation
(Hammersley & Atkinson 1983; Gill & Johnson 1991). The main objectives of the
research were to:
· collect data in schools from a multiplicity of perspectives including those of

head teachers, deputy head teachers, governors, parents, students, support

staff and teachers;
· compare effective leadership in contexts ranging from small rural primary
schools to large urban secondary schools;
· identify the personal qualities and professional competencies which are gen-
eric to effective leadership in schools;
· re-examine existing theoretical perspectives on school leadership through
insights derived from new empirical research; and
· contribute to the wider educational debate on the relationship between
leadership and school effectiveness and improvement.
It was acknowledged that the term ‘effectiveness’ when applied to the leadership
provided by headteachers is both a contextualised and relational construct. Conse-
quently, it was decided to investigate effective leadership by reference to a wide
range of contexts and leadership challenges. This was achieved by the selection of
theory-generating case studies based upon three dimensions (Yin 1989; Maykut &
Morehouse 1994). These dimensions were:
· schools of different sizes operating within different phases of education (ie,

the early years of primary schooling through to upper secondary and includ-
ing special schools);
· schools located within a range of economic and socio-cultural settings (ie,
including rural, suburban and inner-urban schools as well as those with
mixed catchment areas); and
· schools in which head teachers who were widely acknowledged as being
‘effective’ leaders had spent different amounts of time (i.e. ranging from
relatively new to well-established head teachers with many years of experi-
ence).
Given the goals of the research, the most critical and problematic of these dimen-
sions concerned the selection of schools in which the head teacher met the criterion
of providing ‘effective’ leadership. The research team adopted a working de nition
22 C. Day et al.
of ‘effectiveness’ which enabled schools to be chosen on the basis of the following

criteria:
· schools which had received a ‘positive’ Inspection Report by Ofsted, particu-

larly with regard to the leadership provided by the head teacher;
· schools which, on the basis of test scores and examination results, could be
shown to be performing better than local and national means; and
· schools in which their head teachers were widely acknowledged by their
professional peers (through the local, regional and national networks of the
NAHT) as being ‘effective’ leaders.
Once schools meeting all of the above criteria had been identi ed it was then
necessary through a process of negotiation (in which the NAHT acted as an
intermediary) for the research team to gain access to schools in which the head
teachers were prepared to:
· subject themselves to intensive questioning during three interviews, each

lasting for at least an hour;
· give the researchers access to deputy head teachers, governors, parents,
students, support staff and teachers in order to conduct one-to-one and
group interviews which would focus (perhaps critically) on the leadership
which they had experienced; and
· organise and manage a programme of interviews and group meetings over a
period of three days at a busy time in the school year (February–June).
The main methods used to collect data in the twelve case study schools were a short
fact- nding questionnaire, one-to-one interviews and group interviews. Information
about each of the schools appears in Appendix 1 and further details of the research
methodology can be found in Day et al. (2000). In addition to the collection of
primary data, documentary evidence was obtained from such secondary sources as
school development plans, school prospectuses, OfSTED Inspection Reports,
newsletters and examples of media coverage. These sources were used to contextu-
alise the empirical data as research has shown the importance of context in under-
standing approaches to school leadership (Leithwood et al. 1999).
The Analysis
The analysis of 12 case studies by the team of ve researchers followed a complex
pattern of theory development and testing (Yin 1989). As a process it revealed the
possibilities and problems inherent in combining researchers who felt more comfort-
able with a ‘grounded approach’ (Glaser & Strauss 1967) and those who wish to
apply existing theoretical frameworks during the initial analysis of the data. This
tension between researchers with fundamentally different approaches to data analy-
sis was evident in each of the ve-phase analysis of the interviews. It was inevitable
that thirty six days of qualitative eldwork in the case study schools which included
eg, a total of thirty six one-to-one interviews of a minimum of one hour’s duration
with their head teachers would yield a rich abundance of data in the form of eld
notes, audio-cassette recordings and the researchers’ own recollections and impres-
sions of their experiences. The principles and procedures of qualitative research as
derived from ethnomethodology and phenomenology (Tesch 1990) were used in
the analysis of this plethora of evidence.
Consequently, the analysis of the eld evidence was not deferred until the end
of the project. It began early and proceeded concurrently with the collection of data
in schools so that the two became closely integrated (Glaser & Strauss 1967) to the
extent that they began to inform each other (Miles & Huberman 1984). The
simultaneous collection and analysis of data was a re ective activity, both individu-
ally and for the team as a whole. This process of re ection took a number of forms
including periodic meetings of the project team at which progress was reviewed and
ideas and opinions were discussed usually as a result of analytical notes (or
‘memos’) based on the re ections of individuals. These re ective documents and
the discussions they prompted furthered the process of analysis by helping the team
to move between concrete eld data and conceptualisation. They also provide an
accountable record or ‘audit trail’ (Lincoln & Guba 1985) which showed that the
process of re ection and inductive data analysis not only occurred, but proceeded
in a manner which, while being exible and eclectic, was nevertheless orderly and
systematic.
The sheer volume and diversity of the data collected by the team made it
necessary to organise it into smaller homogeneous units of information in order to
begin to make sense of it. Consequently, the project, by means of the re ective
process described above, arranged the data into ‘segments’ of material based on an
organising system derived from the data themselves. The process, therefore, was
essentially one of inductive cross-case analysis (Miles & Huberman 1994), the main
outcome of which was a two dimensional matrix with issues and themes related to
school leadership on one axis and the different sources of evidence (i.e., head
teachers, governors, parents etc.) on the other. In the early stages of this process the
organising categories, especially the issues and themes, were regarded as being
tentative and provisional and were subsequently modi ed in the search for a more
satisfactory system—though it would be dif cult to disagree with Lo and (1971)
who concluded that ‘no order ts perfectly’. Manipulating the eld work data in
this way proved to be a time-consuming but intellectually-exacting activity.
Having arranged the data for purposes of analysis in such a way, it was possible
to compare what the different sources of evidence (ie, head teachers, deputies,
governors etc) had revealed about leadership in their schools, or what a particular
category of stakeholder had to say about different aspect of leadership. In the event
it was decided that the richness of the insights provided by the analysis of the
different perspectives of the various stakeholder interviewed should be re ected in
the way in which the research was reported. The aim was to go beyond what
Hycner (1985) called a ‘composite summary’ and what Patton (1980) has referred
to as a descriptive account of ‘patterns and themes’. Instead the nal goal was to
offer a critique of existing theories of effective leadership in schools in the light of
the project’s empirical ndings and to suggest some ‘provisional’ hypotheses
24 C. Day et al.
(Turner 1981), new concepts or ‘theoretical categories’ (Lazarsfeld 1972) and some
tentative thoughts on ‘substantive theory’ (Glaser & Strauss 1967).
The analysis eventually developed along two distinct strands. Firstly, the
process of thematic induction began to build into a picture of the characteristics and
behaviours associated with effective leadership as viewed from the perspectives of
the key stakeholders. At the same time, the research team was searching for ways of
encapsulating the perspective provided by the headteachers themselves. Although it
would have been possible to have drawn upon the characteristics and behaviours
described by the headteachers, these did not seem to adequately capture their
day-to-day experience of leadership. It was at this point that the team began to
develop the idea of using the tensions and dilemmas which headteachers and other
respondents had raised during the interviews. The idea of dilemmas proved to be
especially attractive because it seemed to encapsulate much of the problematic
nature of leadership. It also provided a link between the construction of leadership
by the various stakeholders and the individual theories of headteachers—a link based
on the overlapping needs and expectations of those surrounding the headteachers
and their own beliefs and values. We approached the role of the leadership within
schools from what Clark et al. (1999) have termed a ‘dilemmatic perspective’. A
perspective in which:
Dilemmas are not merely accidental and temporary dif culties which arise
in particular situations. Rather, social life itself is essentially dilemmatic
since it involves choosing between courses of action which are to a greater
or lesser extent mutually exclusive. Education is therefore characterised by
a series of dilemmas which are endemic, though they may surface in
different forms at different times and places. (p. 170)
Tensions on the other hand re ected speci c sets of pressures experienced by
leaders which in certain contexts. Although different sets of tensions may ‘pull’
headteachers in different directions these did not necessarily involve leaders in
having to choose between mutually exclusive courses of actions or decisions. Our
attempts to uncover tensions and dilemmas which were endemic, and to a degree
perennial, was driven by our desire to identify those which shaped or limited the
leadership approaches of the headteachers we researched. Dilemmas and tensions,
therefore, offered the prospect of gaining new insights into the dif culties which
headteachers have in navigating their way through a complex matrix of expectations
while maintaining their personal integrity.
In addition, the adoption of this approach allowed the team to bring together
aspects of several of the case studies in a holistic format. No one headteacher
encountered all of the chosen dilemmas but the eld evidence showed that they had
all experienced aspects of each dilemma. The analysis allowed these fragments to be
drawn together around shared incidents, values and expectations, and in so doing it
began to reveal how the headteachers were being positioned by those around them
and were positioning themselves.
By presenting the analysis in the form of dilemmas, it was hoped that they
would aid further re ection, not just on the nature of leadership, but on the
experience of leadership. Its impossible to adequately capture that experience in its

totality and the dilemmas do not attempt to do so. Rather they provide a structure
for considering how the experience of being a leader arises from the complex
interaction of personal ideologies, relationships with staff and students, and the
demands of the school situation.
However, given the insights which the interviews with headteachers gave into
the impact which their professional work has on their personal lives it would have
been worthwhile, on re ection, to have pursued this matter further by questioning
those people who are closest to them personally—their partners and friends who
know them well. The original research design did not anticipate that this particular
perspective might be a valid and potentially-fruitful source of evidence.
The Leadership Construct

The methodology recognised that ‘effective’ leadership is both a highly contextu-

alised and relational construct. Therefore not only did it need to be investigated by
reference to schools selected on the basis of providing a wide range of contexts and
leadership challenges but also with reference to multiple perspectives within the
broader school community. This allows for a critical analysis of people-centred
models of leadership in real ‘leadership contexts’ within which school headteachers
both establish themselves as leaders and in which they are judged by others. By
viewing these relationships from the perspectives of those whose knowledge was
based upon close or indirect and direct experience of them it was possible to identify
not only the felt tensions and dilemmas of leaders but also the demands and
aspirations of key stakeholders in the school community. These perspectives were
investigated by individual and group interviews of key stakeholders. This was an
attempt to develop a perspective on leadership which Ribbins & Gronn (1996)
describes as ‘post-positivist’ approach to the role of contextual in uences in de ning
and shaping personal agency, an approach which moves beyond a singular focus on
the headteacherl’s self construction of themselves as a leader. It allows for a
consideration of the interaction between the headteachers self construction, the
shared social construction of leadership by the various stakeholders, and those
aspects of leadership which are valued and demonstrated in their interactions.
The presence of a shared social construction of effective leadership amongst
very different stakeholders is signi cant for three reasons. Firstly it helped us realise
the extent to which what we were gleaning from the various stakeholders were not
just characteristics of their headteachers that they had observed, but were also beliefs
about how ‘good’ leaders should act. Such beliefs have their roots within shared
social construction of what leadership is about and the way in which leaders should
act. These formed a complex matrix of demands and expectations around the
headteachers which they partially assimilated, always had to manage and occasion-
ally challenged. Secondly, the analysis had begun to reveal patterns within the
expectations of different groups of stakeholders who gave greater signi cance to
certain characteristics because of their position within the school and its broader
community. For example, honesty and openness in decision making was seen as
26 C. Day et al.
particularly signi cant by teachers whose careers and working conditions were
directly effected by them; parents placed particular value on their headteacher’s
ability to communicate and draw them into the community of the school; and
governors emphasised the strategic and micro-political skills of head teachers. Each
headteacher’s work was, therefore, set within a matrix of needs and expectations all
of which had to be navigated. Thirdly, this 360° matrix of expectations and demands
placed on the headteachers by the broader school community formed the backdrop
to a number of tensions and dilemmas. Not only did it play a part in their
construction, but it also represented a number of critical audiences as the headteach-
ers attempted to lead and manage them.
The Results
(1) Beyond Transformational Leadership
The evidence is suf cient to suggest that existing theories of leadership do not
adequately re ect or explain the current practice of effective leaders. Rather, they
suggest a people-centred model of leadership we have termed ‘values led contin-
gency leadership’. They adhered to a ‘person centred’ philosophy that placed
emphasis upon improving teaching and learning via high expectations of others. For
them, the primary task of leadership concerned building and monitoring the condi-
tions for professional, institutional and broader community growth (Leithwood et al.
1999). They were constantly engaged with the daily business of simultaneously
managing inter-personal relations and challenging others to give of their best in the
context of policy-driven imperatives which were not always universally welcomed.
(2) Values Led—Achievement Oriented—People-Centred

The ndings from the research study demonstrate that effective leadership is de ned
and driven by individual value systems, rather than instrumental managerial con-
cerns. Management and leadership were essential components of these headteach-
ers’ roles and heads were able to do both successfully. They engaged in
people-centred leadership, constantly creating, maintaining, reviewing and renewing
the learning and achievement cultures for students, staff and the close communities
of parents and governors whom they served; and they modelled this in the many
thousands of daily interactions through which common visions, expectations, stan-
dards, relationships and de nitions of effectiveness were formed, framed, supported
and tested. Of equal importance was their ability to create and monitor organisa-
tional structures appropriate to the ful lment of the legitimate interests and aspira-
tions of both internal and external stakeholders. It follows that effective heads have
a major responsibility both for the ongoing, evolutionary development of the schools
in which they work and, within this, the more formal accelerated learning opportu-
nities and challenges collectively known as ‘school improvement’ and ‘teacher
development’. The headteachers communicated their vision and values through
their leadership relationships. They had been able to raise the self-con dence,
morale and sense of achievement of staff by using these relationships to develop a

climate of colaboration and by applying within them high standards to themselves
and others. Their focus was always upon the betterment of the children, young
people and staff who worked in their schools. In this respect, they exercised
‘educative leadership’ (Duignan & Macpherson 1992). They were empathetic,
warm, genuine in their love for children and concerned for their well being and
achievement (Mintzberg 1994; Jackson et al. 1993; Noddings 1992). All valued and
encouraged collegiality, a feature of ‘moving’ schools (Rosenholtz 1989; Hargreaves
1991), and all fostered climates of openness in their schools between students, staff
and community, encouraging staff to participate in discussions about values and
beliefs as well as in decision-making processes, emphasising mutual respect and
providing supportive leadership for all their staff.
The heads in this study operated on the basis of both internally and externally
determined measures of quality control so that their quality assurance criteria had a
broader agenda in keeping with a holistic broader moral vision of a good school and
good teachers, it involved everyone in the organisation seeking systematically, with
evidence, to ensure that standards were constantly improving. It was contingent but
within a framework of unshakeable core values. All the heads:
· were clear in their vision for the school and communicated it to all its
constituents;
· focused upon care and achievement simultaneously;
· created maintained and constantly monitored relationships recognising them
as key to the cultures of learning;
· were re ective in a variety of internal and external social and organisational
contexts, using a variety of problem-solving approaches;
· sought, synthesised, and evaluated internal and external data, applying these
to the school within their values framework;
· persisted with apparently intractable issues in their drive for higher standards;
· were prepared to take risks in order to achieve these;
· were not afraid to ask dif cult questions of themselves and others;
· were entrepreneurial;
· were ‘networkers’ inside and outside the school;
· were not afraid to acknowledge failure but did not give up and learnt from it;
· were aware of a range of sources to help solve problems; and
· managed ongoing tensions and dilemmas through principled, values-led
contingency leadership.
A number of writers (Shakeshaft 1989; Blackmore 1989) have argued for a
paradigm shift in conceptions of leadership which start not from the basis of power
and control but from the ability to act with others and to enable others to act. The
heads in the study rarely used their personal rather than positional power to obtain
the results they wanted. Yet at the core of their personal power resided a particular
vision for the school shaped by a particular set of values. These effective headteach-
ers saw themselves as the source of a vision for their institutions, working through
their relationships with members of the school community. Centrally important in
28 C. Day et al.
this new model of leadership is the co-operation and alignment of others to the
leaders’ values and vision with those of the leader. The heads in the study commu-
nicated their personal vision and belief systems by direction, words and deeds.
Through a variety of symbolic gestures and action, they were successful at realign-
ing the school community to their particular vision.
In short, they led both the cognitive and the affective lives of the school,
combining structural (developing clear goals), political (building alliances) and
educational leadership (professional development and teaching improvement) with
symbolic leadership (presence, inspiration) and human ‘principle-centred’ leader-
ship (demonstrating care and support) (Bolman & Deal 1984; Covey 1990). It
was the human resource management which occupied most of their daily time and
which created the most tensions and celebration. In this respect, their leader-
ship approaches were heavily people-centred. They were both transactional—
ensuring that systems were maintained and developed, targets were formulated
and met and that their schools ran smoothly—and transformative—building on

esteem, competence, autonomy and achievement, raising, ‘the level of human
conduct and ethical aspiration of both the leader and the led’ (Sergiovanni 1992);
and bonding, ‘by inspiring extraordinary commitment and performance’ (Sergio-
vanni 1992: 25).
Contingency Driven: Managing Tensions and Dilemmas

What seemed to really make the difference for the stakeholders was not only the
persistence of vision and values with the simultaneous focus of the headteachers
upon process and achievement (product) but also their ability to manage a number
of tensions and dilemmas which characterized the human imperfections school
contexts which, like classrooms, were by their nature, dynamic, complex and
unpredictable.
In this section use is made of two linked concepts—tensions and dilemmas—
which are grounded in the data as ‘lenses’ (Berlak & Berlak 1981) through which to
focus in on leadership. The main distinction between tensions and dilemmas
concerns the possibilities of choice and in uence. The tensions identi ed in this
study tended to be those over which headteachers had little choice or in uence. In
the case of the dilemmas, possibilities of choice and in uence did exist, but the
degree to which the heads exercised such possibilities varied considerably. A di-
lemma, in this sense, is a situation which presents at least two contradictory
propositions. Whichever is chosen, however, will not be entirely satisfactory. To-
gether these constructs of ‘tensions’ and ‘dilemmas’ capture the immediacy of the
continuing con icts faced by many of the heads in the study. They underscore the
continuing dynamic between their core personal values, management functions and
leadership demands. They capture their past, present and future pressures, chal-
lenges, and concerns and aspirations with which they are daily faced and which
re ect the multi-faceted demands of the role. Heads are constantly juggling com-
peting demands upon their time, energy and resources.
The data revealed seven key tensions and three dilemmas of ‘effective’ head
teachers which focus upon their roles not only in maintaining and consolidating
what they have already achieved, but also in managing the challenges associated with
moving their individual schools forward. The tensions focus broadly on issues of
leadership, personal time and professional tasks, personal and institutional values,
maintaining presence, improving quality and developing staff, internal and external
change, autocracy and autonomy and leadership in small schools. They re ect the
concerns of a group of headteachers who are primarily concerned with achieving
success for the teachers and pupils in their schools, for whom improvement is a
permanent part of their personal and professional agendas.
(1) Leadership versus Management

Leadership is essentially the process of building and maintaining a sense of vision,
culture and interpersonal relationships, whereas management is the co-ordination,

support and monitoring of organisational activities. To enact both roles successfully
requires a careful balancing act.
Leadership is about having vision and articulating, ordering priorities,

getting others to go with you, constantly reviewing what you are doing and
holding on to things you value. Management is about the functions,
procedures and systems by which you realise the vision. (Infant School
Deputy)
(2) Development versus Maintenance

‘If I don’t develop others, the school won’t develop. So that’s my priority.
Other jobs can be delegated but not this one.’ (Primary Head)
There is a tension between the amount of time and energy devoted to system
maintenance and that devoted to ensuring that staff were always more than com-
petent and were challenged and supported actively in seeking higher standards.
(3) Internal versus External Change

The pressure is from outside, but I have to manage the pressure inside …
(Secondary Head)
The growth in external scrutiny of schools creates its own tensions. Headteachers
found themselves positioned uneasily between those forces outside schools instigat-
ing and promoting changes and their own staff who, ultimately, had to implement
them. They demonstrated their leadership by the selection of which initiatives to
take on; the relative support which they provide for their implementation; their
knowledge of how others were tackling new initiatives and by the ways they adapted
initiatives to their particular values and circumstances.
30 C. Day et al.
(4) Autocracy versus Autonomy

Although we can work closely, there has to be a time when decisions are
taken and she has to say whether we can or cannot do this … (Primary
Deputy)
In school cultures of collaboration in which decision making is no longer the

exclusive preserve of headteachers, and yet heads remain responsible and account-
able for the schools’ success (or otherwise), a key leadership skill that these heads
displayed was their ability to manage the boundaries of autocratic and democratic
decision making.
(5) Personal Time versus Professional Tasks

Increasing external requirements upon schools had led many heads to commit more
and more of their personal time to school-related business:
I work at least 60 hours a week … it worries me because I don’t know how

long I can go on putting in the amount of energy (Primary Head)
Although most heads in the study had found ways of managing the demands of
intensi cation the personal opportunity costs were universally high and, long term,
potentially damaging.
(6) Personal Values versus Institutional Imperatives

Whilst there was little evidence in the study of opposing sets of values within the
schools, tensions did arise from externally generated pressures of rationalism, and
de nitions of ef ciency and effectiveness which were perceived as challenging
strongly held people-centred values.
He holds traditional human values—care for people and community and

giving back to society the bene ts of what you have been given at school.
You are a better person if you achieve academically, but that is only part
of being a balanced person. (Primary Teacher)
(7) Leadership in Small versus Large Schools

Heads in small primary schools were disadvantaged on two main counts. Because
they had regular, signi cant class teaching responsibilities, they were unable to ful l
their strategic leadership roles satisfactorily:
… it’s all the stress of planning and preparing and co-ordinating as a class
teacher which is too much … (Primary Head)
The breadth of the curriculum which needed to be addressed also provided addi-
tional demands upon the small number of staff.
(8) Development or Dismissal

For headteachers who have to make decisions about teaching standards, continuing
poor teaching by a member of staff creates a leadership dilemma, cutting across the
headteachers’ personal framework of values and beliefs, their ideological and educa-
tive commitments to the development of everyone in the school community.
You can support somebody who is incompetent for as long as you like, but
there comes a point where you know that it is not going to make any
difference, particularly if they have been doing it for a long time. (Infant
Head)
Engaging in dismissal procedures touches upon the culture of the school, staff
morale, and the nature of the relationship between leader and led. The headteachers
in the study, however, had not shrunk from taking such ‘tough decisions’, illustrat-
ing the clear if painful boundary that must be drawn at key times between the
personal and professional relationships which are at the heart of the educational
health of school communities.
(9) Power with or Power Over

The basis of this dilemma is the extent to which similar and dissimilar values can be
reconciled. The headteachers in this study sought to achieve a balance between
consulting and involving staff in their decisions whilst still providing a clear direction
forward, but were aware that such involvement might well lead to demands for a
bigger say in the direction and that this might well challenge their right always to
make the nal decision.
We are leaders in our own little domain and sometimes it’s hard to accept
the overall leadership … because you think you have got a better way of
doing it … (Primary Teacher)
(10) Sub-contracting or Mediation?

This nal dilemma re ects the position of most heads in the study as they found
themselves legally responsible for the implementation of externally imposed change
some of which challenged their own moral purposes, sets of core values and
practices, and analysis of the needs of their particular school.
At the end of the day the head has to have integrity and to stick to core
values and beliefs. It is important that the head can demonstrate integrity
in the face of adversity … (Infant Head)
The heads had not become ‘sub-contractors’, unthinking links in a chain leading
from those who developed policy to those who received it. Nor were they subver-
sives, attempting to undermine the authority of policy imperatives. Rather, they
managed changes with integrity and skill, integrating them into the vision, values
and practices of their schools.
32 C. Day et al.
Discussion
A Values-Led Contingency Model: Post-Transformational Leadership
We in ‘mainstream’ educational management have become to preoccupied
with what might be called the institutional side of leadership and manage-
ment to the extent of disregarding, or at least under-emphasising policy
and contextual factors. In doing so we may be playing into the hands of
those who accuse educational management of being too technocratic and
mechanistic and of paying insuf cient regard to values (Glatter et al.,
1996: 3)
The ndings from the research study have demonstrated that effective leadership is
de ned and driven by individual value systems, rather than instrumental managerial
concerns. They demonstrate also the important in uences of socio, political, econ-
omic and personal and professional contexts on effective leadership. Moreover, they
illustrate that there are alternative models to the bureaucratic, rational and
entrepreneurial forms of leadership espoused in government policy and documen-
tation which are more appropriate to leaders in the third millennium and more
likely to lead to success. Thus, they pose a direct challenge to the current orthodoxy
of such forms of leadership theory and leadership training which are based upon
them.
Within the study, there was ample evidence that people were trusted to work as
autonomous professionals, within clear collegial value frameworks which were
common to all. There was a strong emphasis upon teamwork and participation in
decision-making (though heads reserved the right to be autocratic). Goals were
clear and agreed, communications were good and everyone had high expectations
of themselves and others. These collegial cultures were maintained, however, within
contexts of organisational and individual accountability set by external policy
demands and internal aspirations. These created ongoing tensions and dilemmas
which had to be managed and mediated as part of the establishment and mainte-
nance of effective leadership cultures. These heads, for example, were able to live
with the dilemmas of ‘development or dismissal’, ‘sub-contracting or mediation’ or
‘power over or power with’. They were not part of, nor did they encourage a
‘dependency’ culture (Fullan 1998). They were constantly engaged with the daily
business of simultaneously managing inter-personal relations and challenging others
to give of their best in the context of policy-driven imperatives which were not
always universally welcomed. In these schools, a new kind of hierarchy had
emerged:
… one that places purposes, values and commitments at the apex and
teachers, headteachers, parents and students below in service to these
purposes … (Sergiovanni 1992: 27)
It seems that morality, emotion and social bonds provide far more powerful
stimulants to motivation and commitment than the extrinsic concerns of transac-
tional leadership in which leaders and followers exchange needs and services to
achieve independent objectives. Sergiovanni’s (1995) concepts of ‘servant leader
ship’ and ‘stewardship’ and the ‘ exibility’ and ‘resiliency’ which he sees as key
characteristics of effective leaders relate closely to the ndings in this study, as does
the work in England by Grace (1995), and Bottery (1992) which focuses upon the
ethics of leadership:
Leadership in general must maintain an ethical focus which is oriented

towards democratic values within a community. This has to do with the
meaning of ethics historically—as a search for the good life of a community
… Ethics here refers to a more comprehensive construct than just individ-
ual behaviour; rather it implicates us and how we as a moral community
live our communal lives. (Grace, 1995: 55)
The heads in the study were centrally concerned with developing their organisation
through developing others. In Sergiovanni’s (1998) analysis they developed social
capital by encouraging collegiality and collaboration. The data provided by teachers,

pupils, parents and governors emphasised ‘building community’ as an important
dimension of the leadership role. Furthermore, it was evident that within the various
school communities there was a strong and clear commitment to academic achieve-
ment as evidenced by the heads’ high expectations of their staff. This academic
capital was developed through a commitment to the success of all pupils and a
shared belief in rewarding and praising pupils.
This new model of leadership which we are proposing takes leadership and
management to be mutually reinforcing within a conception of leadership that is
diffuse rather than hierachical. The knowledge and skills that are required are both
generic and speci c, within and between phases and sectors. The kind of moral
leadership that Hodgkinson advocates for example, is a generic feature of effective
leaders. Similarly, effective leaders must have the ability to read and adjust to the
particular context or set of circumstances they face. In this respect, their leadership
behaviour is contingent on context and situation. The choices that they make relate
directly to their own beliefs, values and leadership style. Different contexts will
present different challenges and will require different responses. In the turbulent and
unpredictable climate of uncertain and changing challenges which characterized
schools of today and tomorrow the room for manoeuvre is constrained and inevi-
table tensions arise. Consequently, effective leadership in the 1990s and beyond is
essentially concerned with adapting strategies and tactics (but not values) to address
unanticipated events and new demands.
The capacity of leaders to make a difference will, then, depend upon their
interpretation of and responses to the constraints, demands and choices that they
face. Goldring (1997) argues that effective leaders, like those in this study, must
know how to span boundaries in order to promote information and resource control.
At the same time as they negotiate the constraints of internal and external environ-
ments, they must capitalise on the many opportunities for making choices.
The concept of leadership proposed here, then, has a number of different
dimensions which combine to represent the complexity of leadership. It includes a
range of features, or characteristics that are not mutually exclusive.
34 C. Day et al.
Values and Vision

Centrally important in this new model of leadership is the co-operation and
alignment of others to the leaders’ values and vision with those of the leader. The
heads in the study communicated their personal vision and belief systems by
direction, words and deeds. Through a variety of symbolic gestures and action, they
were successful at realigning both staff and pupils to their particular vision of the
school. As Bhindi and Duignan (1996) have proposed in their visionary paradigm
for leadership in 2020:
Organisations are not solely concerned with outcomes, processes and

resources. They are also concerned with the human spirit and their values
and relationships. Authentic leaders breathe the life force into the work-
place and keep the people feeling energised and focused. As stewards and
guides they build people and their self esteem. They derive their credibility
from personal integrity and ‘walking’ their values. (p29)
Integrity
In many respects, the heads in the study did ‘walk the talk’. Through the consistency
and integrity of their actions, they modelled behaviour that they considered desirable
to achieve the school goals. This dimension of values-led contingency leadership
incorporates, but is more than, what has been termed by Stoll and Fink (1996) as
invitational leadership. This emphasises the way in which positive and negative
interactions shape one’s concept of self. Invitations are messages communicated to
people which inform them that they are able, responsible and worthwhile. Such
messages are communicated through inter-personal action, but also through institu-
tional policies, programmes, practices and physical environments. Invitational lead-
ership is built upon four basic premises:
Optimism—the belief that people have untapped potential for growth and
development;
Respect—the recognition that each person is an individual;
Trust—the need to trust others to behave in concert and in turn, as leaders, to
behave with integrity; and
Intention—the need to be actively supportive caring and encouraging.
All of these were perceived characteristics of the heads in the study which has
provided the basis for this book. The heads in the study did display invitational
leadership in their day to day dealings with individuals. Their behaviour with others
was premised upon respect and trust and their belief in developing the potential of
staff and students commonly held. Their ability to invite others to share and develop
their vision was frequently commented upon by staff and students alike. Alongside
these qualities, however, were examples of heads being rm (in relation to values,
expectations and standards), and, on occasion, ruthless. In many respects, the way
they interacted with others was the common denominator of their success. The
human qualities they possessed enabled them to lead others effectively and to
establish con dence in others that their vision was worth sharing.
Context
Another important dimension of effective leadership is the power of context. The
heads in the study were highly responsive to the demands and challenges within and
beyond their own school context. In managing people and cultural change they
managed external as well as internal environments. They had skills in communicat-
ing, in supporting colleagues’ development so that they felt con dent in ful lling
expectations of their contribution to the achievement of strategic goals and in the
management of con ict and negotiating positive outcomes. In this sense, they were
‘adaptive’ (Heifetz 1994). In adaptive leadership, rst developed in a medical
context, it is recognised that the leader’s task is to advance the goals of the
organisation by designing appropriate strategies which others must carry out. How-
ever, ‘resolving problems’ and ‘tackling and tough decisions’ is seen as a context-re-
lated collective responsibility. Thus the role of the leader is to engage in activities
designed to raise awareness, ‘ripen the issues’ in order to mobilise groups to tackle
the issues and to take responsibility for consequences of their decisions (Edwards
1999). The heads in the study were adaptive and through these processes were able
to manage con ict in a way that achieved positive outcomes. They were also adept
at keeping the balance between involving others and taking individual action. It is
clear, then, that effective leaders are able, within competing values frameworks, to
combine a moral purpose with a willingness to be collaborative and to promote
collaboration amongst colleagues, whether through teamwork, or extending the
boundaries of participation in decision making.
Continuing Professional Development: Power with and through

The heads in this study adopted highly creative approaches to tackling the complex
demands of implementing multiple change. The decision to work with and through
teams as well as individuals was a common response to the management of change.
Telford (1996) argues that collaborative leadership is the most certain way of
ensuring the vision of the school is realised. Her model of collaborative leadership
identi es ‘artistry’ as an additional key ingredient of successful school leadership.
Such artistry is required to read the idiosyncrasies of each leadership context and to
know how to exploit the situation to maximum advantage. Within the study the
heads did operate a form of collaborative leadership and saw staff and students as
central to achieving the school’s purpose. The heads used a number of strategies for
bringing out the best in staff. In addition to formal development opportunities, these
strategies included: the power of praise; involving others in decision making; giving
professional autonomy; leading by standing behind, alongside and in front. Al-
though the heads tended to concentrate on teaching staff in the rst instance, they
used similar approaches when dealing with governors, parents and, to some extent,
students. All the heads invested in others in order to lead the school. From the
36 C. Day et al.
perspectives of governors, deputies, teachers, parents and pupils the overarching

message was one of the head building the community of the school in its widest
sense ie, through developing and involving others.
Implications for Leadership Training and Development

The characteristics of successful leaders and their ability to be simultaneously
people-centred whilst managing a number of tensions and dilemmas highlight the
complexity of the kinds of values-led contingency leadership exercised by these
successful heads. The study illustrates that there are no neat solutions to situations
which hold within them so many variables; that successful leadership is de ned and
driven by individual and collective value systems rather than instrumental, bureau-
cratic, managerial concerns. Leaders in this study were identi ed as being re ective,
caring and highly principled people who emphasised the human dimension of the
management enterprise. They placed a high premium upon personal values and
were concerned more with cultural than structural change. They had all moved
beyond a narrow rational, managerial view of their role to a more holistic, values-led
approach guided by personal experience and preference. What, then, are the
implications for the leadership training and development of aspiring and serving
school leaders? Nations across the world are extending their provision of training
and development programmes. In England, the establishment by the Teacher
Training Agency of such programmes for aspiring and serving headteachers as
Headteachers Leadership and Management Programme (HEADLAMP), National
Professional Quali cation for Headship (NPQH) and Leadership Programme for
Serving Headteachers (LPSH) provide a testimony of the importance attached by
government to effective leadership, and this has been further underlined by the
establishment of a high pro le, innovative National College for School Leadership.
Currently, even the most recent training programmes fail to address the key
themes which have emerged from the study. Since values, it seems, are central to
successful leadership, re ection upon these must be central to training. Alongside
this must be a focus upon critical thinking, emotional and cognitive (echoing Roland
Barth’s wise dictum that heads must be the ‘leading learners’ in their schools), and
intra as well as inter personal skill development. Recognition of the intimate link in
successful leadership between the personal and the professional, between the devel-
opment of the individual and the organisation is paramount. Finally, problem
solving and the management of ‘competing forces’ must be key components of
leadership training for school improvement if schools are to become the high
achieving learning communities espoused by government. The seven tensions and
three dilemmas presented here highlight the complex and fraught nature of head-
ship. They illustrate that effective heads, like others, must manage these whilst
engaging in the central tasks of building cultures and promoting learning and
achievement. Indeed, they are an inherent part of the context in which these occur.
There are no easy or perfect answers. The worlds of schools, like those of class-
rooms, hold too many variables and few neat solutions. The concepts are useful
because they reveal that effective leaders are not always successful at all times with
all people and that a key characteristic is their determination and ability to continue
to try to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Within governments’ overall strategic vision for education, in all countries the
training, re-skilling, and certi cation of heads occupies a central place. The problem
is that many of the training models focus upon managerial rather than leadership
functions. In doing so they fail to build capacities of heads to re ect upon their own
values and those of the whole school community and do not provide suf cient
emphasis upon building the range of interpersonal qualities and skills necessary and
appropriate to effective leadership. For governments’ rhetoric of lifelong learning,
high teaching standards, pupil achievement and school improvement to become a
reality, schools need to be led by headteachers who are not only knowledgeable and
skilled in managerial techniques but also, like those in this study, people-centred
leaders who are able to combine the management of internal and external change
with a strong development and achievement orientation. Their practices need to be
based upon clear and communicated values to which all in their community
subscribe.
If schools are to become ‘knowledge creating’ in which ‘the knowledge of all the
school’s members and partners is recognised’ and shared, (Hargreaves 1998: 29) if
teachers are to continue to be committed to making a difference in the learning lives
of their students through skilful teaching combined with the ethics of ‘care, justice
and inclusiveness’ (Hargreaves & Fullan 1998: 35), then effective headteachers may
themselves be justi ably expected to demonstrate these qualities through the kinds
of leadership which they exercise.
Power and politics will continue to provide the context and daily realities for life
in all schools and it is the management of the tensions and dilemmas that these
create which, within a strong values framework, is a distinguishing feature of
effective leadership. The heads in this study were effective because they held and
communicated clear vision and values. They empowered staff by developing a
climate of collaboration, by applying high standards to themselves and others and
monitoring these, by seeking the support of various in uential groups within the
school community, by keeping ‘ahead of the game’ through ensuring that they had
a national strategic view of forthcoming changes and by managing their own
personal and professional selves. They managed tensions between dependency and
autonomy, between caution and courage, between maintenance and development.
Their focus was always upon the betterment of the young people and staff who
worked in their schools. They remained also, often against all the odds, enthusiastic
and committed to learning.
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Appendix A: Schools’ Summary Table
Status of Gender of Age Range of Number of Number of Catchment Geographical

School School Type of School Pupils Pupils Pupils on Roll Teachers Area Location
Hillside Maintained Primary Mixed 4–11 416 FT 5 15 Urban Large City in

PT 5 1 NE England
Dunswood Voluntary Secondary Mixed 11–18 1739 FT 5 94 Urban Greater
Controlled Comprehensive PT 5 6 Manchester
All Saints Voluntary Primary Mixed 4–11 358 FT 5 13 Inner City Greater
Controlled Manchester
Newman Voluntary Primary Mixed 3–11 760 FT 5 28 Inner City West Midlands
Aided PT 5 2 Conurbation
Southdown Maintained Primary Mixed 4–11 340 FT 5 12 Rural East Anglia
PT 5 1
Bodham Maintained Primary Mixed 4–11 91 FT 5 2 Rural East Anglia
PT 5 .4
Suf ngton Maintained Comprehensive Mixed 13–18 868 FT 5 57 Rural and East Anglia
Upper PT 5 9 Urban
Moatby Maintained Primary Mixed 4–11 630 FT 5 19 Urban East Anglia
PT 5 5
Lenton Castle Maintained First Mixed 3–8 116 FT 5 6 Inner City Greater London
Nursery Nurses
5 2
Edge eld Maintained Residential EBD Boys 11–16 62 FT 5 9 Rural Kent
Abbey Care Staff 5 15
Newgate Maintained Infant and Mixed 3–7 270 FT 5 8 Inner City East Midlands
Nursery PT 5 2
Pollard Maintained Comprehensive Mixed 11–16 560 FT 5 33 Urban East Midlands
Effective School Leaders
41
42 C. Day et al.
Appendix A: Headteachers’ Summary Table
Number of Number of
years as Appointed headships Years of
Gender of headteacher of from inside or (including service as a
headteacher present school outside school present post) teacher
Female 14 Inside 2 30
Male 15 Outside 2 37
Male 8 Outside 2 26
Female 7 Outside 1 26
Male 9 Outside 1 9

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Grounding Knowledge of Schools in Stakeholder Realities: A Multi-

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Grounding Knowledge of Schools

ABSTRACT Leadership provided by the headteacher is widely acknowledged to be a crucial

· collect data in schools from a multiplicity of perspectives including those of

head teachers, deputy head teachers, governors, parents, students, support

· schools of different sizes operating within different phases of education (ie,

of ‘effectiveness’ which enabled schools to be chosen on the basis of the following

· schools which had received a ‘positive’ Inspection Report by Ofsted, particu-

teachers were prepared to:

· subject themselves to intensive questioning during three interviews, each

experience of leadership. Its impossible to adequately capture that experience in its

The Leadership Construct

The methodology recognised that ‘effective’ leadership is both a highly contextu-

(2) Values Led—Achievement Oriented—People-Centred

morale and sense of achievement of staff by using these relationships to develop a

and met and that their schools ran smoothly—and transformative—building on

Contingency Driven: Managing Tensions and Dilemmas

(1) Leadership versus Management

culture and interpersonal relationships, whereas management is the co-ordination,

Leadership is about having vision and articulating, ordering priorities,

(2) Development versus Maintenance

(3) Internal versus External Change

(4) Autocracy versus Autonomy

In school cultures of collaboration in which decision making is no longer the

(5) Personal Time versus Professional Tasks

I work at least 60 hours a week … it worries me because I don’t know how

(6) Personal Values versus Institutional Imperatives

He holds traditional human values—care for people and community and

(7) Leadership in Small versus Large Schools

(8) Development or Dismissal

(9) Power with or Power Over

(10) Sub-contracting or Mediation?

Leadership in general must maintain an ethical focus which is oriented

capital by encouraging collegiality and collaboration. The data provided by teachers,

Values and Vision

Organisations are not solely concerned with outcomes, processes and

from personal integrity and ‘walking’ their values. (p29)

Continuing Professional Development: Power with and through

perspectives of governors, deputies, teachers, parents and pupils the overarching

Implications for Leadership Training and Development

Appendix A: Schools’ Summary Table

Status of Gender of Age Range of Number of Number of Catchment Geographical

Hillside Maintained Primary Mixed 4–11 416 FT 5 15 Urban Large City in

Appendix A: Headteachers’ Summary Table

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