Theories of Educational Leadership and Management

Abstract

The significance of effective leadership and management for the suc- cessful operation of schools and colleges has been increasingly acknowledged in the twenty-first century. The trend towards self-man- agement in the United Kingdom, and in many other parts of the world, has led to an enhanced appreciation of the importance of managerial competence for educational leaders. More recently, there has been a growing recognition of the differences between leadership and man- agement and an understanding that school principals and senior staff need to be good leaders as well as effective managers. The leadership dimension embraces concepts of vision, values and transformational leadership. Managing capably is an important requirement but leader- ship is perceived to be even more significant in England, and in some to heads and middle managers. other countries. The first edition of this book was published in 1986, before the seis- mic changes to the English and Welsh educational system engendered by the Education Reform Act and subsequent legislation. The second edition, published in 1995, referred to the ‘tentative steps’ being taken develop the managerial competence of senior staff, particularly headteachers. The School Management Task Force (SMTF, 1990) had set the agenda for management development in its 1990 report but, unlike many other countries, there was no national programme of manage- ment training for heads and very little provision of any kind for deputy