Towards a fuller understanding of the complexities of engaging in effective school leadership in the implementation of change in international settings through principal and staff perspectives.

Abstract

Through principal and staff eyes, this research explored the depth of perceived effective educational leadership in action in the implementation of change, in one international setting towards understanding fuller, the complexities involved in engaging in effective school leadership. The context was a struggling school in the Middle East with predominantly non- western staff and my role as principal in exercising leadership enabled the removal of the school from being ‘unsatisfactory’ to ‘satisfactory/good’; and make improvements for the benefit of all stakeholders. I critically explored the leader-follower relationship, in terms of trust, loyalty, and evaluation of principal/staff’s shared moral commitment in improving the school’s effectiveness. The results demonstrated that there was significant but not complete, perception connectedness between principal and staff. Although, there were areas of development for the school leader, the results did align with similar educational research, (Pashiardis, 2001, 2005) set in Western contexts. This empirical research and the new data found contributes to the base of knowledge and understanding surrounding present-day leadership in schools by combining theoretical perspectives stemming from literature (Pan & Chen, 2021) which argue for a newer frame of reference for school leadership which is decentralised and shared. New approaches to school leadership argue the importance of teachers within leadership endeavour, collaboration and capacity for school improvement, and bring to the fore the pivotal importance their perspective may hold of a school’s leadership (Kin et al, 2019; Van Wyk, 2020). This research is significant in providing a case study that moves away from the heavy Anglo-American bias existent in the field to a more international perspective. As a study of leadership in action, i.e. a principal’s and her staff’s lived experiences of leadership in an international school, this research offers insights into practices of leading school improvement and the perceptions of the followers’ responses to those improvements, it makes a substantive contribution to the field of school leadership by enhancing understandings of ‘effective’ leadership. The study therefore has contributed to the development of insights for evaluating ‘effective’ leadership based on multiple perspectives.

Date of Award	28 Jun 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Carol Taylor (Supervisor) & Andrea Abbas (Supervisor)