Educational leadership differs from other organizational leadership contexts in three key ways: 1) Educational institutions are mainly non-profit and aim to promote learning, presenting more opportunities for diverse leadership approaches compared to for-profit contexts. 2) The educational context involves many stakeholders with conflicting demands, making it more complex than other sectors. 3) Leadership philosophies in education tend to be instrumental, scientific, humanistic, or critical - focusing on effective strategies, measurable outcomes, personal experiences, or social justice respectively. This contrasts with primarily instrumental approaches common in other fields.

1. Educational Leadership
10 November 2012

2. Why is educational leadership
different?
Mainly because of the context
Most educational institutions are not for profit
Main purpose of an educational institute is
learning
Context is often complex - involves multiple
stakeholders with very conflicting demands
Presents more opportunities for people to show
leadership in most cases

3. Educational leadership
Leadership philosophies in the educational
area are often quite different to those in
most other organisations
The philosophies generally present in
educational settings can be:
Instrumental
Scientific
Humanistic
Critical

4. Educational philosophies
Instrumental
Provides leaders with effective leadership
strategies to deliver organisational outcomes.
This is the most common philosophy in most
OECD countries
Designed to be all about being effective and
helping to manage staff performance to achieve
goals

5. Educational philosophies
The scientific position
This seeks to measure the causal impact
of leaders on followers behaviours
Uses statistics to measure effectiveness
such as on student outcomes
Used in transformational leadership
All about getting follower commitment
and results that can be measured

6. Educational philosophies
Gathers and theorises from the
experience and biographies of those
who are leaders
All about telling stories about leadership
and using case studies to inform practice
Does not use measure for success
Servant leadership would come under
this philosophy

7. Educational philosophies
Critical position
Concerned with revealing and
emancipating leaders and followers from
social injustice and the oppression of
established social structures.
Concerned with challenging the
established way of doing things

8. Areas of leadership
Education is special because you can be a
leader in many areas:
Developing courses of learning
Leadership of courses -ensuring that course are
delivered successfully on a day to day basis
Research leadership - leading the research in an area of
practice
Departmental leadership - leading an organisational unit
within an educational organisation
Leading the organisation through a period of change
Teaching leadership - being regarded as a leader in
delivery

9. Problems of educational
leadership
Complexity of context
Shifting political agendas
Rise of competition
Community expectations
Changing knowledge
Intersectorial conflicts
Hard to lead in more than one area