Why is school leadership key to transforming education? Structural and cultural assumptions for quality education in diverse contexts

Abstract

AbstractFailing to recognize the role of leaders in quality and equitable schooling is unfortunate and must be redressed. Leadership is fundamentally about organized agency and collective vision, not managerialism, since it is an organizational quality, not merely a positionality attribute. Most important, if change is to be systemic and transformative, it cannot occur uniquely at the individual teachers’ level. School organization is fundamental to circulating and consolidating new innovative actions, cognitive schemes, and behaviors in coherent collective practices. This article engages with the relevance of governance patterns, school organization, and wider cultural and pedagogical factors that shape various leadership configurations. It formulates several assumptions that clarify the importance of leadership in any organized change. The way teachers act and represent their reality is strongly influenced by the architecture of their organization, while their ability to act with agency is directly linked to the existence of flat or prominent hierarchies, both potentially problematic for deep and systemic change. A hierarchical imposition from above as well as a lack of leadership vision in fragmented school cultures cannot determine any transformation.