Systematic Review of Studies on Strategic leadership in Education

By

Zewditu Defa

Submitted in the partial fulfilment for the course seminar one

Course Facilitators:

Dr. Mitiku Bekele (Associate Professor)

Dr. Dessalegn Beyene (Assistant Professor)

 
1. Strategic leadership in Education

1. 1. Introduction- Conceptualization of leadership

• Rapid changes in science and information technology during globalization have made it difficult for each nation to stand
individually. Countries require cooperation and inter-nation reliance including higher level of cooperation in operating
missions and problem solving. At the same time, the world is full of information that people need to consider, analyze,
categorize, and decide upon to keep up with the social dynamic.
• This leads to economic competition, trading and international-industrial collaboration. One factor driving these changes and
processes is education. In order to keep up with the circumstances mentioned above, education in several countries needs to be
reformed as it has to confront the challenges of the 21st century and have adequate efficiency in competing in the global market
(Upper Secondary Education Bureau, 2013).
• Thus, it’s inevitable that the school administrator be a knowledgeable worker with professionalism and an educational leader
who can utilize science and arts integration in the management of the school to achieve the highest goals.
• Consequently, institution leaders need vision and determination to encourage their subordinates to acquire leadership by
adopting participatory management or teamwork in the organization. They can create relationships between leaders and
followers.
• The leader is bound to seek strategies or tools to lead the organization to its excellence and efficiency. A good leader should be
capable of encouraging followers to be attentive, united, and willing to work and more importantly, to support them morally in
their duties. That best tool for running an effective educational institution is leadership (Chijang, 2009).
• Therefore, at this time, administrators are essential and need to have management strategy that includes leadership in strategic
educational management. Leaders need to acquire strategic leadership in order to driven the organization to a target set
effectively and efficiently (Deeboonmee, 2013).
•Conceptual and definition of Strategic Leadership

•Leadership is often regarded to as the single most critical factor in the success of failure of institutions. Different leadership
styles have varying impact on the performance of institutions in both long and short term. Among the various leadership
styles, strategic leadership has been observed to have immediate and long-term impact. Great leaders are arbitrated by the
impact they legacy of their tenure.

• Strategic leadership has been defined as determining where an organization was heading and how to get there. According
to the Cheng, 2000, strategic leadership largely entails strategic and long-range forecasting, and was a process that mainly
belonged to the upper management. Strategic leadership acknowledges the uncertainty of the expected future and
accordingly develops strategies to tackle the unknown (Quong & Walker, 2010). Of the various impact of strategic
leadership, alignment is considered to be an integral component of this type of leadership. According to Khadem (2008:
29), alignment is crucial to success. Alignment is that state in which strategy, employees, customers and key processes
work in sync to drive growth and profits. Aligned organizations have satisfied customers,
• fulfilled employees and superior services and products. Therefore, the development of alignment among team members is
an integral part of team management. The planning is derived from the goals and objectives of all the stakeholders of the
school.The leadership of the organization guides the strategy on the other hand. The synergy between the two components
results in the success of the organization. These questions give rise to the problem statement and objectives addressed in
this study.
•The definition of strategy within the education context

•Jones (1987, p.9) articulated a need for strategy in schools through “the ability to articulate a coherent
framework or philosophy, a set of over-arching goals which mean something to the members of the whole
school community”. This definition alludes to a more conceptual definition of strategy that is not necessarily
tied to written planning. However, it could be argued that the definition implicitly implies planning to be central
to strategy. Sanyal and Martin (1992, p. 1) defined a strategy as “the determination of the basic, long term goals
and objectives of an educational system, the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources
necessary for carrying out these goals”. This systemic level definition remains closely tied to the original
conceptualization of strategy in the business sector.
• El-Hout (1994, p. 55) says, “strategy is very much a state of mind, a way of addressing and making important
organizational decisions daily”. He adds, that strategic thinking “is not just concerned with what, but with
why, not objectives, but paths and relationships, not checklists but processes” (El-Hout, 1994, p. 61). Filder
(1996, p. 1) suggests that strategy is concerned with “the long-term future of an organisation”, but later
added, it was “planning a successful future for your school” (Fidler, 1996, p. 19).Quong et al. (1998, p. 10)
define strategy as “selecting a destination, figuring out the best way of getting there, then explaining how you
have arrived”. This definition of strategy begins to implicitly link strategy with the role of planning. Leader
(2004) stresses, that strategy is a proactive rather than reactive means of translating decisions into actions.
Coleman, 2007:1-2).
•1.2. Review Methodology

•This review is a systematic review; which pursues the nature and key features supporting strategic school
leadership and identifies the concepts related to the leadership strategies in the educational setting.Hence,
articles about the strategic educational leadership were reviewed in the following manner. Studies located by
conducting computer searches from such data bases as Sage, ERIC, science direct and Google scholars with
keywords: Education, strategy, leadership, strategic leadership, and so on. Here under, a total of 5 articles were
reviewed. The articles were selected based on their emphasis strategic educational leadership in the school
setting.
Table 1. Summary of the articles reviewed
•Article one review:

3. Development of Program to Enhance Strategic Leadership of Secondary School Administrators

•This is a systematic review of an article entitled with “Development of Program to Enhance Strategic Leadership of Secondary School Administrators”.

•Authors background-Pimpisa Chatcha waphun, Suwat Julsuwan1 & Boonchom Srisa-ard from Faculty of Education, Mahasarakham University, Thailand, Online
Published: on September 22, 2016

•Research objectives

•The authors aimed to attain the following objectives:

 study principles, attributes and skills needed for secondary school administrators,
 investigate current situations, desirable conditions and needs of strategic secondary school administrators,
 develop a strategic secondary school administrator enhancement program
•3. Method and Instrument

•The writers of the article used the subsequent Method and Instrument. They divided research and development
into 4 steps:

•Step 1: Investigating theory and relevant researches, principles and desirable strategic leadership of secondary
school administrators.

•Step 2: Investigating the current condition of strategic leadership and needs in developing a strategic secondary
school administrator enhancement program.

•Step 3: Developing the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator enhancement program.

•Step 4: Applying the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator enhancement program.
•Results
The results of the study showed that:

•1) Investigating theory and relevant researches, principles and desirable strategic leadership of the secondary school administrators.
There were 3 major elements, 16 sub-elements and 75 indicators discovered.
2) Investigating desirable conditions for the development of the strategic secondary school administrator enhancement program. The
desirable condition of strategic leadership at secondary school was at a high level overall and in each aspect.

•3) Developing the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator enhancement program.
The developed program of the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator consisted of 2 items:
 The program manual, which contained 4 parts: introduction, the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator
enhancement program, the application of strategic leadership development, and the program evaluation;
 The secondary school administrator enhancement program of strategic leadership contained the following: 1) program principles;
2) program objectives; 3) contents.
•4) The strategic leadership in secondary school administrator enhancement program application
•The evaluation of the strategic leadership level of the secondary school administrators, measured by the
administrators and teachers, revealed that the post-development strategic leadership level was higher than the
pre-development level in all aspects. Moreover, the follow-up-period evaluation of the strategic leadership level
was higher than the post-development level in all aspects.

•Overall, the evaluation of the strategic leadership enhancement program in terms of satisfaction was at a very
high level. When considering each aspect ranking from high to low, the elements of training venue and facilities
and development activities were at a very high level, while the content and training document was at a high
level.
• Discussion

1. Principles, attributes and skills needed for the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator. There were three major elements, 16 sub-
elements and 75 indicators discovered.

2. The principles on strategic leadership consisted of 7 sub-elements and 35 indicators

3. Application of the empirical evidence in organizational research and development and

4. Application of the empirical evidence in organizational work and decision-making Hargreaves (1999), Groundwater-Smith (2000), Quong and
Allan Walker (2010).

5. Strategic leadership skills are in 6 sub-elements 25 indicators described as follows:

• Sub-element 1 learning skill has 4 indicators: Schuoemaker, Krupp, and Howland (2010).

• Sub-element 2 interpretation skill has four indicators: Schuoemaker, Krupp, and Howland (2010).

• Sub-element 3 forecasting skill consists of 4 indicators: 1 Schuoemaker, Krupp, and Howland (2010), PSA Leadership Institute (2013).

• Sub-element 4 consistent planning skill has four indicators

•The current and desirable condition of the strategic leadership of secondary school administrators.

•The level of strategic leadership of secondary school administrators currently is high overall and is also high in every
aspect.

•The desirable conditions of secondary school administrators' strategic leadership are very high overall and are also very
high at every aspect.

•The priority needs of the strategic leadership enhancement of the secondary school administrators, ranking from high to
low, the first two major elements with equal value were the principles and the attributes, while the skills of the strategic
leadership were ranked secondly.

•This may result because the school administrators can adapt themselves to groups and changes, apply empirical evidence
in work and decision making, have creativity, accept their own mistakes, and know how to improve and make appropriate
adjustment, create values and culture in the organization, cooperate with internal and external organizations.
•R e s u l t

•The evaluation of the strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator enhancement program.

•The evaluation results conclude that the developed program of the strategic leadership of the secondary school
administrator enhancement consisted of 2 items:

•1) the program manual which contained 4 parts: introduction, the strategic leadership of the secondary school
administrator enhancement program, the application of strategic leadership development, and the program
evaluation;

• 2) the program of strategic leadership of the secondary school administrator enhancement contained the
following elements: 1) program principles, 2) program objectives, 3) contents which consisted of 3 module as
the strategic leadership principles-the strategic leadership attributes-strategic leadership skills.
•Results of the strategic leadership in the secondary school administrator enhancement program
application.

•The evaluation of the strategic leadership level of secondary school administrators was high overall and as
measured by the teachers, the administrator had strategic leadership attributes at a moderate level. This
might have resulted because the administrators kept searching for new knowledge though were deficient in
organizational best practice, clear vision, ability to manage risks, creating and implanting values and
organizational culture, staff acceptance and respects.
•The strong side of the article

•The content is relevant to developing countries current problem of skills, knowledge and attitudes school
administrators, which is manifested by disagreements among teachers, students, the surrounding societies and
government responsible bodies.

•The language is clear and informative to understand each specific issues of the article. Each specific content was
well discussed in detail.

•The lesson learned

•Being strategic leader is a key and crucial element, to identify and alleviate the current problem of education
system by designing and implementing different strategies which is based on current research outputs in
considering the existing context of educational organization of the country.
 3. Article Two Review-Relationship between Strategic Leadership and School Effectiveness:

•The authors of the article mentioned that, the high working leader of the organization or the administrator is a person at a strategic level which has a direct responsibility
in strategic plan management in every step. It can be concluded that strategic management consists of three main steps: 1) Strategic formulation 2) Strategic
implementation and 3) Strategic control and evaluation (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996).

•Problem Statement

•The important issue for the current administrators is that they have to change and have strategies in their management as well as a leadership style in strategic
management. With all of these characteristics, the administrators should be able to move their organization towards the specified goals effectively and efficiently.
(Department of Academic,2003)

•Therefore, the researcher got interested in studying a research regarding the relationship between strategic leadership and school effectiveness of school administrators
under Khon Kaen municipality office; Thailand. The obtained knowledge would serve as key information for the improvement of strategic leadership that will give
development to school administrators
Strategic leadership and school effectiveness
•Methodology

•The authors used a co-relational type of research to achieve the objectives of the study. The populations were
the school administrators and 50 teachers from eleven schools which were to talled 533. The samples comprised
30 school leaders and 217 school teachers, which was summed to 249. The samples were drawn from Krejcei
Mogan Simple Random Sampling.

•Research Instruments

•The research used a set of 5–rating scale questionnaire. Descriptive data analysis was employed using SPSS. It
also used the multiple correlation analysis as well as a test for multi – collinearly correlation for the analysis of
independent variables.
•Findings
 The level of strategic leadership was ranked at a high level. When considering at individual aspects, it was
found that the implementation of strategic leadership yielded the highest average score and at the aspect of
“set the directions for the organization” yielded the lowest mean score.
 In the effectiveness of schools under the municipality Office of Khon Kaen, it was ranked high. When
considering the individual aspect, it was found that students’ characteristics showed the highest average
score while the students’ learning achievement showed the lowest average score. Also, the students learning
achievement showed the lowest average score.
 Relationship between strategic leadership performance on the effectiveness of schools under the
municipality Office of Khon Kaen, it was found that there was a positive correlation at a medium level in all
of the five aspects of strategic leadership
• 
•The strong side of the article

•The effort made by the authors to identify the status of strategic leadership and the relationship between school effectiveness and
principal’ strategic leadership is appreciable Each major variable is discussed in detail and specific way according to its sequence and
the relationship with other variables.The language is clear and informative to understand.

•The weak side of the article

•The restriction of participants only to respond for the questionnaire by ignoring the interview which is the qualitative aspects of the
study, might have its own negative implication on the validity of data.

•The lesson learned

• The consideration is given to the strategic leadership of principals in educational organization in planning: Input, process, and
output of the system will result in the organization’s effectiveness. This isa great lesson for any member of the education system
from the bottom to the top management level and for those assigned as education policy designers for all levels of the organization.
•
•Article review three:

3. Influence of Strategic Leadership Style on Academic Performance of National Schools in Kenya

•Authors-Clare Gakenia1, Prof. Paul Katuse2, & Dr. Peter Kiriri3 Doctorate Student at United States International University, Lecturers at United States International
University, Volume 19, Issue 7. Ver. I (July 2017), PP 09-24

•Basic research question

•What key factors of the strategic leader make the difference in this competitive landscape?

•The principal as the school leader is invariable impacted by discretional factors that may influence the outcome; his ability to absorb and adapt to these factors
determine if he will succeed or fail. There are among the many components of leadership that congruently contribute to the success or failure of the organization. Several
reasons indicate that there should be a relationship between leadership style and organizational performance. Zhu et al. (2005), suggest that a visionary type of
leadership will result in high levels of cohesion, commitment, trust, motivation, and hence performance in the new organizational environments. Visionary leaders will
generate a strategic vision for an expected future state, communicates the vision, model the vision, and ensures a buy-in towards the vision (Avolio, 1999; McShane and
Von Glinow, 2000).
• Mehra, Smith, Dixon, & Robertson, (2006) argue that when some organizations seek efficient ways to enable
them excel in their performance, the key is to focus on the effects of leadership. Leadership is no longer
proposed as having a direct influence on academic outcomes, but indirectly influences instructional
organization and culture of the learning institutions.A clear understanding of the impact of leadership on
performance is hence important as research has indicated as iis considered to be a critical driving force for
improving an organization performance. Fry (2003) defines leadership as a provision of guidance in strategy
to offer inspiring motivation and enhance the staff ‘s perspective for growth and development. (McGrath and
MacMillan, 2000; Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997).
• Success in the national public high schools is measured mainly by the performance of students ‘in external
examinations. Examinations are used among others to measure the level of candidates ‘achievements and
clarify the candidates ‘level of education and training. They also provide the basis for evaluating the
curriculum both at local and national level. A student ‘s performance in any examination is dependent such
variables include the type of school and the facilities in this schools, the level of qualification of the teachers,
the academic panache, the qualification and leadership style by the head teacher, the school environment and
the teachers (Lydia & Nasongo, 2009).
• The main role of the instructional leader is to ensure that the mission achievement of the established mission through
creating a good environment for the schools (Lezotte, 2001). According Graddy & Stevens, (2005), there was a negative
relationship between the pupil teacher ratio and the students' academic performance. Munir & Khalil (2016) established
that the effect of principals' leadership behaviour on student did not have a significant impact on the performance of the
students. Various studies have varying perspectives in relation to the effectiveness of a school; particularly in
regard to performance. Martimore, (1998) maintains that effective schools are the schools wherein the students score
higher on achievement text that might be expected from the characterization at entry whilst Hoy and Miskey (2008)
reckons that school’s effectiveness is usually judged through academic performance results. In the most general sense,
school effectiveness refers to the level of goal attainment of a school (Prof.Scheerens, 2013).
•The objective of the article

•Schreerens (1999) highlights the consensus being largest in relation to the following factors: achievement orientation, co-
operation, educational leadership, frequent monitoring, time, opportunity to learn and structure. Of the six factors
highlighted as factors that enhance the school effectiveness, the focus of this study will mainly be on leadership and
evaluation of how in particular strategic leadership impacts effectiveness. To this end for the purpose of this study school
performance in relation to the achievement in the national exam KCSE is considered to be academic performance.
•Findings and Discussions

•Frequency Distribution of Strategic Leadership Style

•All the strategic leadership style responses were moderately distributed since they had a standard deviation between 0.5 and
1.0 except on four metrics. These five metrics included; We ensure ethical behavior in all our students, faculty and staff;
They have established clear measures to monitor ethical behavior of students, faculty and staff; Strategic plans are translated
into specific requirements for each work unit or department, and Improvement plans are regularly upgraded which standard
deviations of less than 0.5 signifying that the responses were closely distributed around the mean and hence high consensus.

•The positive multiple correlation coefficient (R) indicated the cumulative effect of strategic leadership strategic leadership
is positively correlated to academic performance of national schools. There is a strong and positive correlation of 0.524
between the strategic leadership styles and academic performance of national schools. On the other hand, the coefficient of
determination (R Square) of 0.274 indicates that 27.4% of the variance in academic performance can be attributed to
strategic leadership styles in national schools.
•The strong side of the article
 The discussion made for each concept is supported with strong statistical description.
 Each topic and subtopics were well discussed to make more informative and understandable way before the
whole process of the study.
 The article content relevance to our country Ethiopian education system is the appreciable part of the study.
•  

•The lesson learned

•For the school principals, including all other stakeholders of education system, being strategic leader is crucial in all
educational organisation aspects. By having such kind of leadership style, the organizations will be future oriented
and proactive in each and every decision-making process. By thinking forward about the uncertainty of the future of
educational organization a strategic leader will plan activities with flexible strategies and resources in effective and
efficient utilization of available human, capital and financial resources.
• Article four review

3. Strategy in educational leadership

•The article was entitled with “Strategy in educational leadership” which was written by Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia as
Journal of Educational Administration Vol. 46 No. 3, 2008 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. .The author tried to discuss strategy comparing with other academic
disciplines, strategy as it is a young field decade (Boyd et al., 2005). There were very few empirical studies on the strategic leadership processes or strategic leadership
behaviours prior to the mid-1980s (House and Aditya, 1997). Despite the relative infancy of the inquiry into strategy and strategic action, the role of strategic leadership
in schools has earned greater significance as a result of the international trends towards school-based management, the changing socio-political environment in which
schools operate and the subsequent paradigm shift in the role of school leadership (Eacott, 2006a).

•The author mentioned that the paper was not a comprehensive review of strategy in education. Rather, the focus is on the evolution of, need for, and future challenges
for the concept in educational leadership. These are discussed to suggest new directions that will push the field forward by exploring conceptual and methodological
issues. The substantial argument of this paper is that our knowledge of strategy in education is incomplete and muddled because the majority of research and writing
in the field have approached strategy from a narrow set of epistemological foundations.

• 
•The evolution of strategy

•The concept of strategy as an explicit tool for leading and managing an educational organisation is of recent origin in both
theory and practice (Eacott, in press). To understand why this origin is so recent, there is a need to examine the school and the
school system as organizations. Schools are large, formal institutions, established by government departments, institutions
such as churches or formally incorporated bodies of private citizens with interest in the form of education (Vick, 2002). Many
school systems have developed into highly centralized bureaucracies (Gamage, 1993) frequently with teachers’ unions with a
traditional mindset that education is best run from the center (Dimmock, 1995).

•However, educational administrative restructuring efforts over the past two decades appear to be part of an attempt to make
the management of schools more efficient, accountable and responsive to government policies by introducing corporate
management approaches from the business sector, devolving responsibility to regions and schools and placing greater
emphasis on educational outputs (Harman, 1991). Governments and education departments are now expecting school
principals to possess a practical knowledge of change management, entrepreneurialism in resource acquisition and commercial
standards in school accountability (Dempster and Logan, 1998).
• The planning and programming of the supplementary activities appears to have emerged as “the whole” of
strategy (Mintzberg, 1994). Bell (1998) argued that “strategy” and “planning” became synonymous.
Practitioners, consultants and academics apply the term “strategy” to almost every management
activity.Central to these findings was the idea that strategic leadership is not a new theory, but an element of
all educational leadership and management theories (Davies and Davies, 2006). Strategy as a concept was a
dimension of all theoretical positions. By placing the body of knowledge in an historical context, a number
of useful conclusions can be drawn (Mercer, 2001; Milliken, 2001). One of the main factors to emerge is a
better understanding of why specific research methods have been used to understand a problem. A central
mindset in educational administration has been the quest for the essence of leadership, a distinctive set of
characteristics possessed by effective leaders (Evers and Lakomski, 1996, 2000). This has shaped our
understanding of strategy in education.
•The need for strategy

•Schools are traditionally viewed as under-led and under-managed organizations characterized by their core business
of teaching and learning (Bain, 2000, Dimmock, 2000; Dimmock and Walker, 2004; Weick, 1976). While
instructional leadership and/or pedagogic leadership (MacNeill and Cavanagh, 2006) remain the core business of
school leaders, strategy is the mechanism for aligning all aspects of the school’s operations in the pursuit of a
common goal. This approach presents strategy to school leaders as a mechanistic pursuit towards the production of a
plan. The underlying assumption of strategy and the strategic leader of schools are viewed as “strategic rationality”
(Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996, p. 337). The rationality paradigm is the basis of theories in planning, public policy
making, microeconomics, organizational learning and even contingency theory (Scheerens, 1997). From this
perspective, the leader’s task is to identify techno-economic opportunities and problems, systematically search for
alternatives and make choices that maximize the performance of the organisation.
• This view of strategy is extremely narrow and conceptually flawed. In most organizations, much of the
manager’s time and attention is given to efforts designed to make the day-to-day operations as efficient as
possible. The primary reason given for this is that inefficiencies in daily operations negatively impact the
organization’s performance. However, organisations depend much more for their long-term success
• and survival on improvements in their effectiveness (that is, on how well they relate to their environments)
than on improvements in their efficiency (Hofer and Schendel, 1978). Drucker (1954) stated that it is more
important to do the right things (improve effectiveness) than to do things right (improve efficiency). This
suggests that an organisation doing the right things wrong (that is, is effective but not efficient), can
outperform the organisation doing the wrong things right (that is, are efficient but not effective). This serves
as the overriding need for strategy within an educational organisation.
•Conceptual issues

•The proposed conceptual framework for strategy in education which forms the basis of this paper’s proposed path forward has been developed from research
and writing in a wide range of contexts, some of which have been indicated. Envisioning, requires the principal and school community to think about the
future of the school. When an enrolling parent walks into the school, the staff and other key figures within the school should be able to articulate what the
school is striving for and what parents can expect throughout their child’s time at the school (Eacott, 2006b). To undertake the process of envisioning requires
critical reflection and reflective dialogue. This reflection needs to form the foundations of strategic thinking.
•There are many different versions of how a school can establish a strategic direction, however what is important, is the meaningful involvement of key
stakeholders.

•Engaging -Research on effective schools has shown that parental involvement in decision making and activities positively correlates with increased satisfaction
and support for the school (Gamage, 1998).

•Involving -as wide as group as possible provides richer source of data on the school to inform discussion and debates and if done well, gives others the feeling
that their contribution is important, recognized and can make a difference. Effective engagement of others allows for the support, development and/or mentoring
of other strategic leaders within the school.

•There are three inter-related levels within the articulating dimension: oral, written and structural. Oral articulation involves articulating the institutional
vision/direction and bringing it to life through conversations and dialogue (Davies and Davies, 2006). Written articulation involves distinguishing between daily
operations and strategic operations and articulating a small set of deliverable objectives that the institution can achieve and focus efforts. Structural articulation,
requires the school to be aligned (e.g., curriculum teams or strategic priority teams) in a consistent manner with the strategic direction and integrated into all
aspects of organizational life.

•Implementation is primarily concerned with how the school’s strategy can be witnessed. Its central aspect is translating strategy into action, establishing
frameworks and ensuring that they become actions. Building on from other features implementation requires that staff understand the school’s strategy and
maintain a commitment to enacting that strategy. However, as with the debate in change management over change versus quality improvement, strategic actions
must aim to significantly improve current operations by developing the capabilities of others.
•Monitoring and evaluation are two crucial elements for effective implementation. The educational leader needs to be
constantly asking themselves and others, where are we now? Where to next? How will we get there? How will we
know when we get there? (Eacott, 2006a). There is a need for a transparent system of data collection to enable
effective monitoring and predetermined points of evaluation. Pivotal to the success of this dimension of strategy is
developing the analytical skills of others to ensure thorough evaluation. Essential elements of this dimension include:
systematic monitoring procedures; continuous monitoring; evaluative judgments; and evaluation of the effectiveness of
the strategy.

•This framework suggests that the strategic role of the principal is just that, a strategic role. An examination of popular
leadership theories leads to an array of strategic actions. Further to this argument is the notion of the “educational
strategist”. This suggests that the principal can draw on knowledge,
understandings and skills from anywhere (including the corporate sector) so long as
they are implemented in a manner that is consistent with the purpose and core values of the school. It is here where the
principal can have the most significant influence on the development of students.
•Methodological issues

•The advancement of any scientific field of inquiry depends on the soundness of the research methodologies
employed by its members (Ketchen and Bergh, 2004). Researchers carefully design their studies to observe
strategy/strategic leadership in such a way that is “consistent with their definition and theory” (Van de Ven,
1992, p. 181) of strategy/strategic leadership. Therefore, while criticism remains that strategic leadership
research relies on sterile archive and survey data (Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996) if investigators’ concept of
strategy is limited to the mechanistic pursuit of a plan, then document analysis of the plan and survey of the
planning process is most appropriate.The rich diversity of methodologies present provides a useful guide for
designing future studies on strategic leadership in schools. However, a research design cannot be undertaken
without a clear conception of what strategic leadership in schools means to the researcher and what theory or
theories of strategic leadership are expected to guide the study (Chakravarthy and Doz, 1992).
•A path forward

•Our knowledge of strategic leadership is currently limited and is mostly based on normative or descriptive
studies and assumptions, most of which remain untested (Papadakis et al., 1998).Mixed methods studies offer
the potential to build substantial theoretical understanding within the specialization of strategy in education. By
this we mean not merely using one method to follow up on data from another method, but a truly integrative
investigation of a phenomenon drawing on multiple methods. However, the fundamental issue of the degree to
which researchers genuinely integrate their findings has not been addressed to a significant extent (Bryman,
2007).
•To better address this issue, it is suggested that researcher use a mixed methods question (Tashakkori and Creswell,
2007b) that forces the two sets of findings together. They describe three means of achieving this:

•(1) write specific quantitative and qualitative questions followed by an explicit mixed methods question;

•(2) write an overarching mixed method question that is then broken down into separate qualitative and quantitative
sub-questions; and

• (3) write questions for each phase of the study as it evolves.

•The major benefit of mixed methods designs is that they allow for research to develop comprehensively and as
completely as possible (Morse, 2004). They provide better (stronger) inferences, with the opportunity to present a
greater diversity of views, as it is possible to simultaneously answer confirmatory and exploratory questions
simultaneously (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003). It is advantageous to a researcher to combine methods to better
understand a concept being tested or explored (Creswell, 1994).
•To advance, the specialization of strategy in education must cumulate knowledge regarding theories that help
explain organisational performance and prescribe ways that managers can adjust strategies to improve
organisational performance (Carlson and Hatfield, 2004; Rumelt et al., 1994). Contemporary researchers in
educational strategy do not start with “clean theories, they have mixtures of assumptions,
concepts, ideas and like” (Griffiths, 1998, p. 36). The personal background and prior experience (e.g., gender,
age, tenure, functional track, formal education) of executives are increasingly recognized as affecting strategy
(Westphal and Fredrickson, 2001). Neumann and Finlay-Neumann (1994) add that the leader’s personality is
likely to have an important impact on both organisational success and growth.

• Areas that need improvement

•The detailed discussion made for each and every point of the article, made the concept vague and unclear. The
writer, methodologies and etc each element of the study is not clearly articulated. The absence of basic
questions for guiding the researcher in clear directions is part of the article that needs further improvement.
•Article five review

3. Strategic Leadership for Education Reform:

•Lessons from the Statewide Systemic Initiatives Program “by Heck, Daniel and Weiss, Iris. (2005)

•Authors’ background

•Iris R. Weiss is President of Horizon, Research, Inc. Her current research focuses on implementing and impacting largescale reforms, including systemic initiatives,
and the Math and Science Partnerships. Previous research has included studies of the status of mathematics and science education.

•Daniel J. Heck is a Senior Research Associate at Horizon Research, Inc. and a doctoral candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. In addition to his current research and evaluation work on large-scale reform in science and mathematics education, he also studies teacher learning in
mathematics professional development.

•Projects funded as Statewide Systemic Initiatives (SSIs) were aimed to align various parts of the system to produce comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained
change. Curriculum learning goals; content, instructional materials, and practice; assessment; teacher recruitment and preparation; and professional development of
teachers, administrators, and others all were to come under the umbrella of systemic reform, as were other parts of the system that affected “ways of doing business
“: organizational structure and decision making, allocation of resources, articulation within the system, and accountability.
•SSIs were also to involve an array of stakeholders in reform efforts scientists and mathematicians, business and community representatives, local
school system decision-makers, and leaders of parent and community-based organizations. This CPRE Policy Brief looks at some of the lessons
from the SSI experience gleaned from a Horizon Research, Inc.

•The systemic approach was intended to address two perceived shortcomings of past reform efforts.

• 1. Some analysts argue that education reform targeting isolated components of a system, even when successful, have been short-lived, primarily
because pressures within the system quickly prompt a return to the status quo (e.g., Berman & McLaughlin, 1978; Fullan, 2001; Smith & O'Day,
1991).

•2. More sophisticated efforts toward education reform ones that address multiple components of the system have often been tied to the vision and
leadership of a single individual or source of funding. With the departure of the critical individual or the loss of the particular source of funding,
some researchers suggest that reform within an education system will not endure (e.g., Wiles, 1993).

•The expectation with SSIs was:

 designing and implementing reform efforts that moved beyond a single component of the system and beyond the vision of a single leader. A
clear and widely shared vision would target and link multiple aspects of the system in a coordinated fashion to support deep and lasting change.
 developing new leaders and stable sources of funding, and tend to the politics of undertaking large-scale education reform.
• Studying Strategic-ness

•The authors intended the study to explore the notion of “strategic leadership. The literature informed their
framework for examining this concept on leadership for systems change and sustainable development in an
array of fields, including education, business, nonprofit organizations, agriculture, ecology, and national
development.

•Besides, the writers paid particular attention to three criteria of strategic leadership:
1. Leaders' understanding of what the SSI had the capacity to do well and how it could be used to leverage
change within the system,
2. Leaders' understanding of the context in which the SSI operated, and
3. The fit between directions pursued by SSI leaders and the contextual conditions they were trying to change
(Goldsmith 1996).
• Making Strategic Choices

•In designing and implementing their initiatives, SSI leaders made many choices about target audiences, interventions,
and so on. Not surprisingly, approaches to design and implementation reflected differences in SSI leaders' background,
experience, and underlying thinking. The choices were many:
 In addition to identifying targets for change, SSI leaders had to consider how best to allocate resources and
sequence activities for maximum benefit.
 Since many projects worked directly with districts, schools, and teachers, but none could do extensive work with
all, SSI leaders had to make choices that they reasoned would have the best payoff.
 SSIs also had to balance short- and long-term objectives, especially in light of the goal of sustaining both the
benefits of the reform and the reform process itself.
•The authors looked at the ways in which SSI leaders addressed short-term objectives to provide clear benefits and high
visibility, even as they simultaneously pursued long-term goals for deep, structural change in the education system.
• In addition, they looked at the internal and external forces that influenced leaders' thinking. For example, what were the
complementary or conflicting interests of the internal SSI leadership, and how did these influence the rationale for the
SSI design? Externally, SSI leaders had to consider the interests and tolerance for reform of diverse constituencies and
ensure that proposed changes met the perceived needs of different groups and benefited the education system as a whole.

•Finally, the authors, examined the extent to which SSI leaders developed and implemented a plan not simply to “scale
up “a set of reform interventions to reach more teachers, classrooms, and schools, but also to “go to scale “so that the
guidance, incentives, and culture of the system were transformed to support ongoing reform (Elmore, 1996).By means of
the writers came to understand it, strategic leadership requires a deep understanding of the system one is trying to
change. Strategic leaders know who has power and influence. They recognize that virtually every decision has trade-offs,
they use available resources efficiently and effectively, and are opportunistic in leveraging additional resources. Strategic
leaders create and take advantage of opportunities for increasing the depth and coherence of reform, and are explicit
about what aspects of reform are critical to long-term success. Finally, strategic leaders use the external funding
resources as a catalyst to set in motion other forces that can produce change in the system.
•Lessons Learned
1. Strategic reform leaders have a vision of formed system and how to achieve it. A vision for effective teaching and learning
is not enough to guide large-scale reform. Rather, strategic leaders possess a larger view of reform and a road map for
getting there.
2. Strategic leaders cultivate broad understanding and support for the reform vision at the highest levels.
3. Strategic leaders cultivate the commitment of school and district leadership to the reform vision and activities.
4. Strategic reform leaders use interventions to translate vision into practice.
5. Strategic reform leaders recognize the benefits of starting small, refining activities as needed, and providing evidence that
interventions lead to the desired outcomes.
6. Strategic reform leaders develop “system “capacity to scale up reform with quality.
7. Strategic leaders develop the capabilities of the next generation of reform leaders.
• Limited time and resources require that large-scale reform efforts “grow “new and expanded leadership leaders who can carry
the reform into the future. However, it is not sufficient for an initiative to develop new leaders without also considering how to
position those leaders to exert influence and authority.
•The Lessons Learned by Reviewer

•The concepts that the authors underlined as "lessons learned" from the articles, particularly, about designing,
implementing, and using performance-based evaluation systems that could be linked to teacher performance
increases are a lesson for me and for the coming education sector reform program designers and implementors.
Therefore, thinking about issues mentioned as a lesson learned in this article are important not only for teachers
but also for all education stake holders with in their day-to-day activities to bridge a gap between top level
policy makers and low level or local policy implementers, through monitoring and evaluation of each activities
of education system.
•Conclusions and Implications of the review
•Based on the data obtained from this review certain conclusions can be drawn.

•The importance of skill of leadership was at a high level because it is believed that the administrators could communicate with
both internal and external organization staff, support proactive communication in publicizing organization continually and
analyze, and check information before making decisions. However, the administrators evaluated themselves in the aspect of
strategic leadership attributes at a high level since they see themselves understanding the context of internal and external
organizations and analyzing the context to improve and develop the organizations.
•The Educational Office should hold the breakthrough workshop by brainstorming to obtain knowledge and comprehension in
process for establishing the strategies and practicing in school under control and support continuously. Nevertheless, strategy
leadership styles variables alone cannot influence the academic performance of their schools as strategy leadership styles were
found not to have a significant influence on the academic performance. However, schools should focus on leadership traits,
resource availability, and strategy implementation plan besides variables of leadership styles. Many of the lessons that emerged
around strategic leadership focused on political challenges rather than technical ones. By contrast, the political aspects of reform
came as a surprise to many SSI leaders, and were a key area of learning.
•An approximately universal lesson was that attending to both technical and political aspects of large-scale reform is critical.
Reform leaders could use the review to identify “aligned “and “unaligned “sites, matched demographically in order to compare
teaching and learning outcomes. Such a study has the potential to provide evidence that aligned policies and programs are related
to the desired results.The study could be presented to various stakeholders to cultivate support for reform. The strategy might also
include a process for developing local leadership and capacity to conduct policy and program reviews to bring more coherence to
the local system. Our knowledge of strategy in education is incomplete and muddled because research and writing in the field have
approached strategy from a narrow and conceptual flawed position. (Scheerens, 1997). The cognitive development of the field
remains at the discovery-orientation rather than empirically-oriented studies.
• 
•In conclusion, the results of this review have plentiful theoretical and practical implications to enrich strategic leadership in
educational organizations at different levels. The reviewed articles were believed that, from the existing leadership strategies
practice from the advanced countries, they have considerable contribution for developing countries also. For the persistence of
future effectiveness of education system, researchers could be able to carry out further studies to explore typical leadership
strategies and programs to design effective and efficient strategies with the right skills and knowledge of leadership and try to
compare their results in diverse contexts in contrast to the findings of this review.
• Furthermore, the findings of the review might offer a broad background information for policy makers and
different level (Top, middle and low-level management) of education sector, for program evaluation and
decision-making process by which different leadership strategies and programs for improvement could be
reviewed in developing countries. Great effort should be made carefully with taking the particular local
contexts with excessive consideration. Finally, the review’s methodological framework could be supposed
towards further review efforts that are looking for identifying the principal features of effective leadership
strategies to improve leadership quality, which is the background for the attainment of quality Education and
decision-making process in different levels of education system of our country
Thank you for your attention