Educational leadership. key elements supporting

84 G. Mazurkiewicz, Edukacyjne przywództwo. Kluczowe elementy …
G. Mazurkiewicz, Educational leadership. Key elements …
Educational leadership. Key elements supporting
teaching and learning
Grzegorz Mazurkiewicz
Key words: Leadership, education, empowerment, teaching and learning
Słowa kluczowe: przywództwo, edukacja, przyznawania praw, nauczania i uczenie się
Synopsis: Within the context of contemporary challenges of the twenty first century there is a need for
change in practice of educational leadership and everyday school management. That change needs
transformation of thinking about educational leadership that will be built on its specificity. There are
three main principles which determine the specificity of educational management. Firstly, the action to
which the educational management applies is the teaching process. Secondly, the context of that action
determines the objectives of the management. Thirdly, one of the main purposes of educational man-
agement is to increase the participation in the decision making process and to strengthen the sense of
responsibility for the teaching process among teachers. School leaders should be able to create good
conditions for teaching and learning processes as main processes within schools. Only then education
can serve the need of contemporary societies.
Introduction
Sometimes social institutions are losing the ability to fulfil their functions be-
cause they were designed and built for a completely different reality. In order to
survive and serve their purpose, all institutions must change. That proves to be
difficult for many of them. One of such unadapted institutions today is the school or,
actually, the entire educational system, which was effective at the beginning of the
20th century, in the industrial era, but is rather ineffective today, in the post-modern,
fluid (Bauman, 2006) reality. While looking at the school‘s work organisation, we
may come to a conclusion that the school ignores the factors which determine the
functioning of today‘s societies and the powerful processes shaping the world bear
almost no influence on the school‘s functioning. In new conditions, it seems that a
change to how the school functions is necessary.
We have to understand what tasks the modern world sets for the school and try to
create applicable solutions which take into account new needs and existing resources
as well as possible consequences. Headmasters and teachers must be allowed to take
decisions about the future and not be forced to undertake actions connected with the
reconstruction of what belongs to the past. It is not true that the education crisis is
caused by lack of an appropriate store of information - the crisis of the school occurs
everywhere where the crisis of the citizenship idea is seen and where social and
historical awareness is missing and inequality and injustice are ignored. The educa-
tion crisis is seen where the fundamental democratic values are compromised (Aro-
nowitz & Giroux, 1991). The school functions in a certain social reality and is not

Dr. Grzegorz Mazurkiewicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland

WSPÓŁCZESNE ZARZĄDZANIE 2/2011 85
CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT QUARTERLY 2/2011
able to ―do something about‖ that reality and act against to the principles of the
cultural ―software‖. If the people around ignore the civilisation changes, the school
itself will also have significant difficulty in an active involvement in designing the
education process in accordance with our dreams and needs. We will not be able to
tackle the crisis by adjusting curricula or by changing the school‘s work organisation
only. We need to take actions which are directed not only at teachers but which also
involve entire communities that the schools function in and cooperate with (Mazur-
kiewicz, 2009b, p. 30). We need to focus on proposing initiatives which aim at
counteracting situations where there is no vision of education development and no
awareness of deep connections between the educational and social sphere.
We are well aware of the fact that the school must be different. However, the time
of bureaucracy has passed and it is naive to expect simple clear solutions and rules.
Modern societies do need a deep understanding of human nature and changing
needs. The basic driving force for action should become the understanding and
cooperation. Changes in technology, transport and communication create the world
in which everything can be produced and sold everywhere and the national econo-
mies disappear – the global economy is a fact now (Thurow, 1996). The fact is also
that there is lack of one ―player‖ who would be able to manage that economy; more-
over, strong decentralisation trends change the politics, business and culture (Nais-
bitt, 1997). The survival of our world depends on whether we are able to learn to
peacefully co-exist in the situation where there is no policeman nearby who keeps
order in a queue and everyone fighting for the best position in that queue differs in
abilities and needs. The main aim of that paper is to structure the general conditions
for the improvement of teaching and learning that happens in all formal and infor-
mal learning situations. I will point to the key points critical for teaching and learn-
ing that might be supported by appropriate educational leadership.
Education, management and leadership today
Education and educational systems are the elements of the public dimension of
social life (which might be understood as those behaviours which take place in the
open, generally available social sphere and serve to maintain the existing collective
order (Sowa, 2006). Although pessimistic visions of social development emphasise
the collapse of a certain relation model in the public sphere, the one based on trust,
cooperation and responsibility for the common good and order (Bauman, 2006) –
the democratic approach to education sets the direction which the educational lead-
ers should follow: work for the collective order.
Efficient functioning of an organisation is uncertain, especially when threats aris-
ing from the consumerist approach to life observed in modern societies are so often
talked about (Bauman, 2004). Mike Bottery (2004) shares those concerns while
pointing out dangers which pose threat to civil society driven by the ideology of
having and buying, i.e. consumption taken to absurd levels which the school not
only does not oppose but participates in. Educational leaders have to arrange values
and objectives of the school anew in a hierarchy. The school cannot be led by a
person who is not aware of the context it functions in. Each decision should arise

from a conviction that what we do serves not only a given institution but everyone
connected to it in any manner.
It is not enough to understand the context in which the school functions; actions
need also be actively undertaken in order to shape that context. The school should be
a place where the understanding of the ―citizen‖ notion is formed and the school
itself must present and shape that civic attitude. A responsible leader does not only
respond to the expectations of authorities but also assumes an active attitude. The
previous mission of the educational system was to deliver and ensure basic-level
education to the largest possible group and higher education to the elite (Fullan, Hill,
Crevola, 2006); today, all students are required to achieve the level which enables
them to study on a higher level and be prepared for lifelong learning.
The educational management process is invariably connected with the actions
taken to set the values, which the teaching and learning process refers to, to define
the needs of the groups and individuals and to formulate the contents, which the
teaching and learning process concerns. Organization of the school system instead of
satisfaction, development and learning too often brings rivalry, bureaucracy, rank-
ings and frustration and failures in consequence. It will not be simple to end that era
and that will happen neither fast nor painlessly.
Actually, it is not fully known how to manage in order to change the school reali-
ty. In order to develop an effective practice, being suitable for the context and social
attitude, consistency and patience are needed. That laborious process of reaching a
desired management model requires decisions and actions taken on various levels of
significance and particularity for a longer period of time, but all the efforts of man-
agers should focus on one thing: providing the teachers with the best possible condi-
tions to teach (Fazzaro, Walter & McKerow, 1994, pp. 85-95). Irrespective of the
situation worldwide, state of economy or the level of discussion about the education,
the education managers have to give teachers an opportunity to teach in such a way
that students have a real chance to learn.
Mental models and educational leadership
While I am presenting the arguments for the necessity to define anew the under-
standing of management and leadership in education or to create the principles of
educational management from scratch, my conviction, being characteristic of the
supporters of the critical theory, is that reality is constructed socially. What we see
and how we understand what we see depend on the importance which we have
attached to the observed phenomena and our own actions. If we make such an as-
sumption we need to realise that in such an understanding of the world, the source of
all injustice are we ourselves because we construct the world and we attach impor-
tance to such categories for example as sex or race.
The real aim of the school should be to build the world, which cannot consist in a
mechanical reproduction of the established conditions but rather in consistent recon-
struction so that as many individuals as possible could enjoy access to education and
have a chance to live with dignity. According to an interpretive concept, we should
define the importance, purpose and manner of functioning for each group and insti-

tution. Educational management, and actually leadership, has a great mission to
accomplish (Mazurkiewicz, 2011).
It so happens that the possessed mental model of a phenomenon, event or con-
cept, if opposite or inconsistent to the idea of change (or new model), makes that
change or modification impossible. Our beliefs about a given subject (mental model)
result from a certain way of perceiving reality, a broader view related to the accepted
system of values and knowledge and ideas we have which can be called paradigm.
Avery (2009) lists four main paradigms of leadership: classical, transactional, visio-
nary and organic. Every one of those enables numerous theories, research results and
behaviours observed in organisations to be integrated in one formula and is thought
as a point or segment on different continua (e.g. between democratic and authorita-
rian leadership) and not as a completely separate category.
Contemporary organisations face various challenges, function in a multicultural,
diverse world where cross-functional working groups are an element of the everyday
life. Those groups need to be capable of self-management and self-improvement, so
do not need permanent, formal leadership. Changes in organisations make the con-
cept of leadership change as well – new forms are needed which take into account
the increasing dispersion of employees and the complexity of connections between
them. The leadership will have to act through the vision and values that permeate in
the entire culture (Avery, 2009, pp. 39-49).
There is an increasing amount of evidence of growing frustration among people
managing schools and a decreasing number of those willing to perform that job,
fulfil that function. Fullan (1997), Williams (2001) and Gronn (2003) show in their
research how schools in the USA, Great Britain, Canada and Australia contend with
problems resulting from lack of headmasters and declining enthusiasm for holding
administrative positions. Similar situation is observed in Poland: headmasters work
hard, in very difficult conditions and are often underrated and underpaid. They feel
exploited, unjustly criticised, tired and threatened by authorities‘ attitude (Fullan,
2003). We need new quality; what is necessary is a large group of educational lead-
ers who are able to shake the situation in the education world (Mazurkiewicz,
2009a).
Theoretical deliberations and practical requirements from school headmasters
have so far brought more misunderstanding than support as they focus mainly on an
individual and its predispositions and duties and underestimate the role of a group
being led. That is why it is worth stressing that even though there are many different
ways of conceptualisation of that issue, its key components facilitating the under-
standing of the leadership phenomenon may be noticed: the process is always dy-
namic and connected with the influence of some people on other people, appears in
the context of a group and concerns the achieving of objectives (Northouse, 2007, p.
3).
It seems that we can state without a greater risk of error that serious changes in
the people around organisations and in the organisations themselves together with
the inability to act appropriately in order to achieve extremely ambitious and com-
plex objectives contribute to an increase in the feeling of discomfort and even fear
among school headmasters. Leaders in schools feel adrift and they desperately need
help (although they will not dare say that openly). The introduction of required

reforms into the school‘s work organisation, responding to students‘ needs, imple-
mentation of a reasonable and effective teachers‘ professional development system,
conducting the process of setting work objectives and evaluating the work of the
school (Fredericks, 1992) are only some of the challenges which the leaders of the
contemporary school face (and which as a matter of fact are beyond capabilities of
an individual). Changing requirements, new social and educational problems that
appear and rising expectations as regards teaching effectiveness contribute to an
essential change to the nature of work of educational leaders, managers of educa-
tional institutions. Changes in the educational system have to result in reconstruc-
tion, i.e. the invention of a new concept of school leadership and the role of a head-
master, being the condition for the success of the children studying in the school.
The task is the more difficult and even paradoxical as the attempts to transfer the
management model from the world of business to the educational system have so far
been rather unsuccessful.
I believe that it is time today to significantly change the way of perceiving the
role of educational leaders. Not all symptoms have been understood properly and
right decisions as to their rights have not been taken yet but there comes the time
when we will be forced to radically rethink the educational management process. It
is necessary to prepare a new type of leaders. Leaders who are aware of the impor-
tance of experience and knowledge about the surroundings which they work in for
the learning process to be designed properly. To lead in education is to ensure condi-
tions for the education process to proceed and to jointly direct further actions, to
take decisions, to lead the change and above all to support people in development, to
help them discover their own potential.
I suggest that the concept of educational leader should be defined: it is a person
who, above all, has the power to persuade and reveal the potential of others. That is
possible because such a leader is able to take an appropriate attitude towards him-
self/herself, the world and the school owing to self-knowledge and reflection as well
as the awareness of the role, which is useful for the creation of a school which
learns.
Learning is a cultural and emotional process (Fink, 2005) and so is leading
people who are participants of that process. It is a combination of all possible ways
of being with others and influencing others, not by primitively steering their beha-
viours but rather through a deep, personal contact. Leadership is the ability to re-
lease others‘ abilities to perform tasks as well as possible and at the same time with
the sense of reasonableness, dignity, respect for others and satisfaction (Blanchard,
2007). An educational leader shares his/her power and since he/she is a motivator at
the same time, he/she encourages others to use their own potential for the coopera-
tion to be the best. At this point, leadership involves the ability to build a team
whose members cooperate and are orientated towards the achieving of objectives
(Reinhartz & Beach, 2004). In that case, the leader helps others believe in them-
selves, see and use their own potential and jointly develops a vision and strategy of
actions. Leader in education (educational leader) sees problems in the overall con-
text and understands the process of learning. The educational leader (who manages a
school or an educational project) is brave and resourceful, perceives changes as an

opportunity and not as a threat and above all acts actively while controlling his/her
destiny rather than waiting for its verdicts (Mazurkiewicz, 2009a).
The priority of educational leaders will always be to support students in learning
and teachers (or other people) in teaching. He/she cannot ―teach for them‖. He/she
must know how to make people learn. The best approach to school management is to
treat that process as similar to the process of teaching. The school should become a
learning community where everyone – including teachers, administrative and aux-
iliary staff as well as leaders – can learn and everyone does it. Being the leader
means above all making people aware of what they want and not what they should. I
will show below in what ways educational leaders may strengthen the process of
learning and teaching through concentrating on particular aspects of that process.
Creating conditions for effective learning
Educational leadership is focused on learning. The most important effect of
teachers‘ work and the activity of schools and other educational institutions are the
students who learn. When that is the case we can say that teaching really takes place.
The first condition for such real teaching to take place is that an opportunity must be
created for that process to appear. What is necessary is the action which will help us
break free from limitations imposed by formal education systems. Their current
organisation and requirements tend rather to hinder than support the process of
learning. While improving the functioning of the school we have to start with those
three simple matters: safety, motivation and identity.
While building the sense of safety it must be remembered that it is dependent on
how teachers perceive students. The beliefs which are the basis for the designing of
the educational process have so far allowed for students being treated as a ―sub-
standard semi-finished product‖ and as defective people who come to school so that
school could ―fix‖ them. Janusz Korczak (1996, p. 101) talked about a kind of
impairment which children experience because they are treated in an irresponsible
manner, being the result of the above mentioned belief. The fundamental task of the
adults should be to help the student feel like an autonomous person and support
him/her in perceiving himself/herself as a partner for others. Students cannot be
treated as objects on which particular operations are carried out, e.g. an operation of
filling the gaps in knowledge. Every human being in order to feel safe has to have
the sense of control over what happens to him and know that others notice him,
respect his opinions and take them into account. The sense of safety derives from
open relations between people, mutual respect and lack of fear of constant judge-
ment.
It is a sad truth that the main function of today‘s educational system is to segre-
gate students depending on their social capital and the factors which determine the
future of a child are its parents‘ education followed by their wealth. Children from
homes with a large economic and social capital are successful in the existing system
while making use of the opportunities offered as part of that system; children from
homes with smaller capital are left out and find themselves on the periphery of that
system, often in vocational schools which lead to nowhere. That complex selection
process starts already at the beginning of the educational journey and is reinforced in

every situation where it is allowed to compare, assess and force students to constant-
ly prove their own value.
In that case, how to build an atmosphere of safety in the school? Above all, such
relationships between teachers and students have to be created where the adults are
genuinely interested in the young man and show real concern for his development.
Of course, the teachers also need to feel safe, they have to be sure they have the
consent and support of the authorities to take care of proper relationships in the first
place and then to care of test results. Fear is the enemy of learning; it is also the
enemy of all relations. If fear accompanies the educational process in the school it
leads to disastrous consequences. In order to be able to start a process of genuine
teaching, teachers need to learn the economic, social or even ecological conditions
which their students live in. The knowledge of students‘ lives cannot be only theo-
retical.
Educational leaders must face the culture of fear (Palmer, 1998) although that in-
volves the necessity to question the traditional approach to interpersonal relations in
the professional context. The culture of fear manifests itself in reflexes, priorities
and practices concentrated mainly on guaranteeing one‘s own safety by proving
one‘s own usefulness and infallibility. It is closely connected with a problem which
is much wider than the stress of a person being assessed; unfortunately, it is a deriva-
tive of what happens outside school. We will not escape the serious problem being
the crisis of interpersonal relations. It is the reason why social life suffers. I believe
that we live in a state where democracy is at risk exactly because of that crisis.
Democracy does not depend only on the arrangements on the political system,
manner of voting, control, human rights etc. Democracy is based above all on trust
in others and on the belief that the persons who take decisions on our behalf do that
on the basis of sensible opinions and judgements (Meier, 2000). When that trust is
missing the democratic system starts to be failing. The same applies to the school. It
is absolutely essential to build trust and the sense of safety already in schools. That
is the first condition for genuine teaching.
The second crucial element of the surroundings which guarantee genuine teach-
ing is motivation. In his widely discussed theory, Alfie Kohn (1998) says that
schools should stop rewarding and punishing for the results of learning. Grades,
certificates of distinction, school reports and prizes get the students into the habit of
acting only in the situation where there is the mechanism of rewarding or punishing.
Motivation disappears and the children stop studying if they no longer receive A‘s
for successes or if they are not punished for lack of progress. People are curious
about the world by nature, they are born ready to learn – that is our vocation without
which our species would not exist. The school should develop that natural instinct
instead of suppressing it. The aim of educating should be to shape intelligence and
the ability to think and not to create collections of information. That objective can
only be achieved with proper motivation.
What the teachers should do in the first place to increase students‘ motivation to
learn is to encourage them to think about their own school experience. They have to
answer themselves the question: what do they go to school for? Building the habit of
critical thinking reinforces their motivation to learn. School education is not only
powerful machinery established, kept and managed with great financial and organi-

sational efforts by people hired by the system but it is also social experience of
millions of young people who come to school with their own plans and dreams.
They sometimes agree to cooperate; they sometimes choose a form of resistance
(Shor, 1992). If we fail to convince them that it is worth making an effort for their
own development, instead of genuine learning, we will observe tricks of slaves
trying to prove that they do everything what is expected from them.
A safe learning process and good motivation are the prerequisites for a genuine
process of educating. Effectiveness of that process is higher when the third condition
is met that is when students understand the context and situation, i.e. something that
I call the awareness of identity. The educational process too often proceeds as if all
its participants were the same; individual needs of students, their history and expe-
riences are not taken into account and their future plans are not considered. The
school must make it possible for students to reflect on who they are and what they
expect from themselves, the school and from the world. That moment of reflection
enables students to understand the specificity of their own situation and because of
that, owing to full awareness of who they learn for and what they learn, to intensify
the process of learning.
Safety, motivation, identity are three quite fundamental concepts, the lack and
absence of which in schools shock and hurt. The school may prove to be one of the
key institutions which have a chance to change the minds but school leaders need to
understand the necessity of securing the learning conditions and work to raise
awareness of existing factors impacting the quality of learning.
Creating conditions for effective teaching
While approaching the process of teaching and learning in order to increase the
it‘s ―effectiveness‖, first of all it is worth thinking how to raise intellectual effort of
students and not teachers.
Unfortunately, the school lacks reflection on various theories and perspectives,
disputes over solutions to specific problems, analysis of research results, exchange
of experience (planned and organized, not just an anecdote or complaining). The
authentic educational process should include some set of values. There should be
room for thinking about students‘ participation and for opening the decision-making
process related to learning. It is about teaching through posing problems, dialogue,
democratization, interdisciplinarity, being an ―activist‖, contextual learning and
openness to diversity (Shor, 1992).
Another element that determines the authentic teaching process is the school and
teachers‘ ability to create teaching situations. Such situations can be created only
when students know they are allowed to experiment and their school is some sort of
a laboratory. I totally agree with Paolo Freire‘s concept that the teaching process is
not just a transfer of information, but it is the process of knowledge construction.
When entering a classroom a teacher must be open to new ideas, willing to answer
the questions and ready to interact with students and to talk to them to satisfy their
dangerous curiosity (Freire, 2001, p. 49). A teacher is a partner in the cognitive
process and in the knowledge construction process. He/she should start from the
same position as his/her students: position of ignorance and curiosity. Its not about

perceiving teachers as equal to students. He/she must show his/her confidence which
should result not from the fact that he/she knows what happens next because he/she
had analyzed the problem earlier or read the handbook, but from his/her belief that
he/she can conduct a discussion about the facts and that he can associate the infor-
mation. Teachers know that they have the knowledge, but they also realize that there
are things they do not know about now, but which they may learn. Teachers are
valuable partners for students because they have done it many times and knows the
procedures, schemes and solutions to difficult situations. The teachers‘ confidence
and the feeling of safety are then settled on solid fundamentals of knowledge, ability
to admit to ignorance and ability to develop in order to eliminate own imperfections.
Students must also have a chance to learn through experiencing, experimenting,
and even guessing. Teachers are to provide conditions for it by designing the
process. Learning must contain an element of search and curiosity why something
works or exists in a certain way. Each experience and reflection lead to another
situations where we experience something and we analyze this experience. This is
how the process become cyclical. The teachers help their students to describe the
experience, express reflections and feedback. The learning process closes on appli-
cation of new knowledge, new skills, new ―product‖ or only on planning the appli-
cation. Learning through experience is a process of knowledge construction through
conscious reflection on what has just happened. It is the process of learning that is
important, while knowledge is a dynamic notion constructed socially, not just a
package transferred to individuals by other individuals.
Educational leaders understand that participation of students in the decision-
making process enables their development and at the same time defines the differ-
ence between the traditional way of teaching and the way of teaching proposed here.
Participation, release of emotions, contextualization of the educational process,
variety of perspectives and problem-posing are main values of such education (Shor,
1992). In the educational process it is necessary to encourage students to conti-
nuously reflect on the meaning of what they are learning at school for their life.
Perhaps in this way students start to accept learning as something for which they are
responsible and not as something that is done for them.
A key to success is designing such a school situation where the negotiation
process is also the process of learning, growing up, reaching maturity and even
becoming a citizen. If we share the power to take key decisions relating to the edu-
cational process with our students, we will create a situation where they will have a
chance for constructing a critical, or analytical and reflective attitude towards them-
selves, the world and their knowledge.
Whenever there is a discussion on how to teach, we face the threat that our think-
ing will go towards a direction that appears to be a cul-de-sac. Either we talk about
methods and ways to manipulate students (used for praiseworthy purposes) and lose
the sense of education in deliberating technical details or we discuss general prin-
ciples and values and forget about obvious conditions. The correct educational
process is a process where teaching methods are used adequately to the reality,
students‘ needs and community where they live, the learning process is authentic and
each student is approached individually. However, neither teachers nor students can
forget why they learn and how to do it best. In democratic societies schools should

teach more than key competencies or basic skills only. In democratic societies
schools participate in a discussion what should be taught and how it should serve the
society.
One of the basic corrective actions that can be undertaken by leaders in schools
and other educational institutions is an attempt to redefine the role of teachers.
Today their role is shaped by long-lasting tradition, experiences of adults from their
school times and everyday school practice. A teacher is still a source of knowledge,
a central figure in the educational process on whom the effectiveness of the manner
of conveying a necessary dose of information depends. Today we know that such
perception of the teacher‘s role is not sufficient. John MacBeath believes that the
school system we have and support, build and develop every day and the teaching
methods are old. Such system and methods can only be successful in developing
countries where there is still a demand for masses of people who meet the same
minimum standards. Others should seriously start thinking about radical changes
leading to strong decentralization, withdrawal from syllabus standardization and to
creation of schools adequate to needs (MacBeath, 2006). Such goal cannot be at-
tained if teachers are deprived of autonomy, muzzled with standards and tests and if
education is replaced by training that suppresses individuality or resistance. Respon-
sible teachers think how to support their students in the learning and development
process, how to meet their needs, fascinations and abilities and to help them develop
in their field of dreams (or if they have no such dreams, to help them have one).
Today teachers not only work more, but they work in enormous stress and will
little satisfaction. Therefore there are more and more opinions that the profession is
in crisis (Sachs, 2004). One of the possible ways to combat the crisis is a new con-
cept of work and new thinking about teachers‘ professionalism. Bottery (1996)
believes that regardless of the adopted perspective, the professionalism should mean
the possession of knowledge and skills specific for a given profession (being an
expert in a field), ability to be altruist (related to ethical attitude to customers) and
autonomy (or a need and right to control and shape the practice of profession).
It is not known why we are witnesses of such strong tendencies to reject the
awareness of responsibility for what we do and it is not known why we often give up
possibilities of ―taking things into own hands‖ and we agree to adapting something
strange or even hostile. Freire wrote: I am happy that I am the man because even if I
know that material, social, political, cultural and ideological conditions under
which we live create divisions that prevent us from fulfilling our dreams and trans-
forming the reality, I know that all the obstacles are not permanent (2001, p. 55).
Such a standpoint requires courage I support, because obstacles cannot be permanent
and our participation in removing them is expected and obvious.
In order to be able to fulfill his/her role the teacher must acquire some intellectual
skills, or methodology that enables him/her to constantly monitor and master his/her
own practice and actions. Teachers must systematically analyze the things they do
according to certain approved principles. One of the popular methods is the action
research method that consists in collecting and analyzing data about a specific
situation at work to be able to deal with a specific problem related to teaching. The
action research method is a proposal of democratization of scientific research and
decision-making process related to teaching and organization of the school‘s work. It

is undertaken by people who what to change the things they do at present but they
want to feel a sense of their actions by relying on hard data and premises for
changes. Such actions enable teachers to start a professional dialogue that consists in
discussing the data and conclusions from their analysis. Maybe it will help to com-
bat traditional isolation of teachers and encourage more and more groups to under-
take a professional discourse conducted according to the scientific discussion prin-
ciples on how to teach better and on evidence that some ideas are better than other.
Action research focuses on what is practical and on what can be really impacted by
us. Enhancing this method in teachers‘ professional development allows us to be-
lieve that teachers will be perceived not as medium-level personnel but as profes-
sionals who can creatively solve problems and understand global and local condi-
tions (Stringer, 1999). Today teachers often find the research and theory useless, or
even dangerous because these are products of a group from the outside, namely
scientists who claim that they are experts who are able to create knowledge in the
area of education.
Educational leaders work to help teachers to understand that the reality, society
and school are all products of contradictory forces, but they are also effect of
people‘s actions and as such they are still unfinished, thus subject to change. Teach-
ers/leaders should not accept the conditions under which they live and work as
something that exists objectively. They should try to decode how the authority,
culture or history determine certain choices that influence the school and conditions
of students‘ life. Such critical skills enable individual people to look ―beyond the
stage‖ and understand deep meanings, reasons, social contexts, ideology and conse-
quences of certain phenomena. They help avoid applying myths, schemes or simpli-
fications. An intellectual is a person who is able to put difficult questions to re-
nowned experts and old systems, to question the validity of choices that are not in
line with the citizen‘s awareness, who understands limitations in development
created by the media or popular culture. An intellectual is a person who can organize
the process of transformational education aimed at developing critical thinking and
process of cooperation (Shor, 1992).
When we speak about educational leaders and the role and model of a profes-
sional teacher, the following three elements must be emphasized:
– deep awareness of own attitudes, theories or even limitations that determines
the way we function in the world and at school and willingness to serve oth-
ers in the process of growing up and development; I call it intellectual sensi-
tivity;
– activity for a social change understood as a main goal of pedagogical work,
through involving into projects inside and outside the school and inspiring
others to make effort for public good; such attitude is defined by me as wil-
lingness to be an educational activist;
– scientific approach to the process of teaching and learning that enables con-
stant revision of the knowledge possessed, mastering the skills and active and
independent (autonomous) construction of own profession through research,
dialogue and cooperation with others – generally defined as scientific ap-
proach to education.

Conclusion
Education is about opening your eyes and seeing for yourself the world as it real-
ly is in all its complexity and then finding the ―tools‖ and the strength to participate
fully, even to change some of what you find (Ayers, 2004). Educational leaders
should focus on securing learning conditions and the development of teachers in
above mentioned areas. A responsible school helps all students in the process of
overcoming natural obstacles and conditions, in the process of overcoming them-
selves, in their striving to discover who they are. Educational leader‘s duty is to
make his colleagues aware of that principle. The school cannot be a mechanism for
reconstruction of reality and cannot only be used for the effective transfer of infor-
mation on the reproduced social order and existing knowledge.
There is a need for discussion about what the school is for. If we do not manage
to engage the most important social forces and all the interested parties we will soon
face inevitable degradation of education. For now the postulates for initiating a deep
discussion about the sense of education and calling for true equality of changes are
rather empty slogans that make us sneer or just think that ―it would be worth doing
so‖.
The main task of leaders of the school that changes the world through supporting
democratic development of knowledge based society is to adequately design and
prepare working conditions for teachers for teaching and for students for learning. If
leaders fulfill the task, the school will be able to support every student in the process
of combating obstacles and conditions.
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Edukacyjne przywództwo. Kluczowe elementy wspierające nauczanie
i uczenie się
Cześć instytucji, tworzonych w innych niż obecne warunkach społecznych, wy-
maga zmian i dostosowania do współczesności, aby móc dobrze spełniać swoją rolę.
Taką instytucją według autora jest szkoła, która nie przystaje do współczesnego
świata. Aby poradzić sobie z kryzysem w szkolnictwie, trzeba zatem podjąć kroki
mające przekształcić nie tylko szkoły, ale także środowiska, w których funkcjonują.
Nie należy jednak oczekiwań jasnych rozwiązań, jako że współczesne realia wyma-
gają raczej głębokiego zrozumienia ciągle zmieniających się oczekiwań wobec
szkoły. W demokratycznym społeczeństwie niezbędne jest demokratyczne przy-
wództwo. Szkoła jest ważnym elementem tworzącym życie publiczne i powinna
poprzez wyznaczanie sobie celów i wartości opierać się negatywnym tendencjom
współczesnego świata, takim jak rozluźnienie więzi społecznych czy konsumpcjo-
nizm. Bardzo istotny dla procesu edukacji jest otwarty dialog. Aby skutecznie speł-
niać swoją rolę, przywódca musi dysponować pewnymi umiejętnościami i zdolno-
ściami, musi być świadomy kontekstu, w jakim funkcjonuje szkoła i w jakim żyją
jej uczniowie i nauczyciele, a także swojej roli w kształtowaniu tego kontekstu.
Zarządzanie i przywództwo w szkołach powinno zatem wyjść z epoki biurokracji
i rankingów, które często kończą się porażką, i dostosować się do nowych potrzeb,
nie zapominając, że głównym celem powinno być stworzenie nauczycielom opty-
malnych warunków do nauczania, tak żeby uczniowie mieli możliwość uczenia się.

Autor opisuje pożądane kierunki zmian, do wprowadzenia których należy dążyć,
pamiętając, że zmiany te mogą być równie bolesne i szkodliwe, jak pozostanie przy
starych rozwiązaniach. Strategie dla rozwoju edukacji w Unii Europejskiej pokazu-
ją, że wysoka jakość kształcenia jest kluczowa dla sukcesu Polski i Europy we
współczesnym świecie. Autor uważa, że rzeczywistość jest uwarunkowana społecz-
nie, a zjawiska negatywne są wynikiem naszych zachowań, rolą szkoły jest zatem
ciągła rekonstrukcja warunków, w jakich funkcjonuje społeczeństwo.
Autor opisuje za Averym cztery paradygmaty przywództwa. Klasyczne przy-
wództwo opiera się na dominacji jednej osoby bądź grupy, która wyznacza cel, zaś
członkowie organizacji są jej posłuszni. Przywództwo transakcyjne polega na umie-
jętności przywódcy wpływania na pozostałych członków grupy i ich oceny przy
indywidualnym podejściu do każdego z nich. Przywództwo wizjonerskie, idealne w
czasach ciągłych zmian, opiera się na wizji przywódcy, za którym podążają pozosta-
li, zaś przywództwo transformacyjne zakłada próbę budowy wspólnoty pomiędzy
przywódcą a zespołem i wykorzystanie potencjału jego członków. Przywództwo
organiczne z kolei opiera się raczej na sieci zależności niż na hierarchicznej struktu-
rze i nie wymaga formalnego, stałego przywódcy.
Zarówno na świecie, jak i w Polsce obserwuje się spadek zainteresowania obej-
mowaniem funkcji dyrektora szkoły ze względu na zbyt duże obciążenia, zbyt mało
czasu na pracę z uczniami i niskie wynagrodzenie. Rzeczywistość zweryfikowała
pogląd, że szkoły mogą być zarządzane według odgórnego planu. Potrzebują one
nowoczesnego modelu przywództwa opartego na relacjach międzyludzkich i reakcji
na zmieniające się warunki wewnątrz organizacji. Proces przywództwa musi być
dynamiczny i wynikać z wzajemnego wpływu członków społeczności szkolnej.
Przywódcy potrzebują pomocy, żeby móc skutecznie zarządzać szkołami w zmienia-
jących się warunkach społecznych, co skłania autora do postawienia tezy, że należa-
łoby stworzyć od podstaw nowy model przywództwa w szkołach.
Przywódca w szkole musi wspierać ucznia w kształceniu i nauczyciela w na-
uczaniu, odkrywać potencjał innych i zachęcać do jego wykorzystania. Szkoła musi
stworzyć uczniom warunki do uczenia się, z których najważniejsze to poczucie
bezpieczeństwa (uczeń czuje szczere zainteresowanie ze strony nauczycieli i nie jest
wykluczany z procesu kształcenia), motywacja (wykorzystująca naturalną cieka-
wość świata i gotowość do nauki) i poczucie tożsamości (wspierany jest indywidu-
alny rozwój ucznia i jego samoświadomość). Niezbędne jest również stworzenia
warunków, w których nauczyciele będą mogli skutecznie uczyć. Nauczyciel musi
być dla ucznia partnerem w procesie zdobywania wiedzy i rozbudzać jego cieka-
wość poprzez pozwalanie na dochodzenia do wiedzy przez doświadczenia. Musi być
gotowy na dyskusje i nowe idee, budując w uczniu poczucie własnej wartości po-
przez odkrywanie jego możliwości. Uczeń powinien przy pomocy nauczyciela sam
stawiać sobie cele i do nich dążyć. Zadaniem przywódcy w szkole jest przedefinio-
wanie roli nauczyciela i metod, jakie powinien stosować, pozostawienie mu auto-
nomii, aby mógł kreatywnie i efektywnie realizować proces kształcenia, a także
wspieranie go w rozwoju zawodowym. Dobry nauczyciel powinien cechować się
intelektualną wrażliwością, gotowością do bycia edukacyjnym aktywistą i nauko-
wym podejściem do edukacji.

Autor, podsumowując, wyraża pogląd, że bez zmiany paradygmatu szkolnictwa
nie ma szans na poprawę sytuacji szkół, których przywódcy muszą być świadomi
swojej roli w kształtowaniu rzeczywistości. Niezbędna jest dyskusja na temat celu,
jaki stoi przed szkołą. Głównym zadaniem jej przywódcy jest stworzenie idealnych
warunków dla nauczycieli do nauczania i dla uczniów do zdobywania wiedzy.

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University, Faculty of Management & Social Communication and its content may not be copied or emailed to
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