Despite decades of research resulting in extensive debates about leadership, understanding the theoretical issues on leadership is complex. For example, Bennis and Nanus (1997) suggest that “leadership is the most studied and least understood concept …in the social sciences.”
Similarly, Stogdill (1974, p. 259) posits that there are “almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.” DuFour and Marzano (2011, pp. 2-3) suggest that “leadership is ultimately about the ability to influence others” and that “it will take a collaborative effort and widely dispersed leadership to meet the challenges confronting our schools.” These authors also state that effective district leaders “hold themselves accountable for shaping the outcome with their actions” and “identify a few key priorities and pursue them relentlessly” (DuFour & Marzano, 2011, p. 40).
Knapp, Honig, Plecki, Portin, and Copland (2014) conceptualise leadership as the collective effort and commitments that shape the direction of a school or district and its learning improvement programmes while engaging in the pursuit of those programmes. They believe that conceptualising leadership as collective work seems more appropriate than viewing leadership as positional. From the above discussion, there seem to be a plethora of ways in
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which scholars may understand leadership. However, it seems befitting to define educational leadership by focusing on the moral purpose of teaching and learning, resulting in learning improvement (Fullan, 2007). Hopkins (2007, p. 14) suggests that educational leadership should be more directed to teaching and learning improvement and “define everything else as instrumental to it.” He justifies his position by stating that most educational leadership literature proposes that leaders should characterise all the traits and skills that remedy the weaknesses of the schools wherein they work. Hopkins (2007, p. 14) further elaborates:
If we put improvement of practice and performance at the centre of our theory of leadership, then these other theories…must shift to theories about the possible skills and knowledge that leaders would have to possess to operate as agents of large scale instructional improvement…the skills and knowledge that matter are those that bear on the creation of settings for learning focused on clear expectations for instruction. All other skills are instrumental.
Similarly, Elmore (2004) contends that the purpose of educational leadership is to improve instructional practices and performance. He believes that it has four dimensions; firstly, for teaching and learning to improve, continuous learning is vital. Secondly, learning requires modelling. Third, the roles and activities of leadership need to “flow from the expertise required for learning and improvement, and not from the institution's formal dictates” (Elmore, 2004, p. 8). Lastly, exercising authority requires reciprocal accountability and capacity. That is, the districts hold the principals accountable for improved learner performance and correspondingly provide the necessary resources and support to teachers who must account for their performance. However, for effective districts, teachers should enjoy “some latitude within specific parameters and the unique context of an individual school was recognised” (DuFour
& Marzano, 2011, p. 30).
Elmore (2004) concludes that the definition of leadership should underpin the guidance and direction of instructional improvement. By implication, leadership practices and behaviours should be adapted to focus on teaching and learning in schools, which is the moral purpose of education (Fullan, 2007). However, Hopkins (2007) asserts that the core of educational leadership practice is about mobilising people to meet adaptive challenges, positively affecting student learning. Linsky and Lawrence (2011) contend that the challenges facing education are
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complex; thus, it is problematic for leaders who think that there are easy answers to these challenges. Therefore, leadership research must focus mainly on leadership activity or practice with perspiration aspects instead of leadership traits, which have inspirational aspects (Linsky
& Lawrence, 2011). From this discussion, I envisage that educational leadership can provide insight into how DOs understand and practice in pursuit of supporting teaching and learning in schools.
2.2.1 Educational leadership for teaching and learning
Research on educational leadership also highlights a relationship between leadership focused on outcomes and student success (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2008; Louis et al., 2010). Moreover, research exploring the relationship between leadership and student learning has shown implications for the principal's role (Elmore, 2000; Louis et al., 2010). Darling-Hammond et al. (2007, p. 9) support this and argue that education leaders influence learning outcomes by developing practices that influence the organisational conditions of the school”. Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom (2004) also conducted a study on how leadership influences student learning. This study concluded that leadership was the second most important school- based factor in children’s academic achievement. They also observed that there were few cases of problem schools that could turn around without effective leaders. Leithwood et al. (2004, p.
70) conducted a study that concluded:
There seems little doubt that both district and school leadership provide a critical bridge between most educational reform initiatives and their consequences for students. Of all the factors that contribute to what students learn at school, present evidence led us to the conclusion that leadership is second in strength only to classroom instruction.
Barber and Mourshed (2007, p. 38) also reported on the world best performing schools globally and supported this assertion by concluding that:
There is not a single documented case of a school successfully turning around its pupil achievement trajectory in the absence of talented leadership. Similarly, we did not find a single school system that had improved in its performance that did not possess sustained, committed, and talented leadership
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Another large-scale study on the link between educational leadership and student learning by Louis et al. (2010, p. 7) aimed to identify “the nature of successful educational leadership and to understand better how such leadership can improve educational practices and student learning.” District leaders focus on learning, teaching, curriculum, and assessment as well as the capability of all other aspects of schooling to support the instructional core and improved student learning. This assertion aligns with the conception of the teaching and learning instructional core defined in Chapter 1. Hoy and Miskel (2008, p. 42) refer to the instructional core as the organisational activity system that produces the actual “product” of the organisation.
Theorising the instructional core, City et al. (2009, see also Childress et al., 2007) suggest that it involves the teacher and the student in the presence of content. The idea is that school improvement becomes possible when there are interactions between teachers, students, and content in the classroom. According to these authors, improving student learning at scale is threefold. That is, the level of the content taught to students, the teacher's skill and content knowledge, and the level of students’ active learning of the content. According to Robinson et al. (2008), if leaders focus their relationships, work, and learning more on the core business of teaching and learning, their influence on student outcomes would be great. She states that this student-focused leadership makes a difference in the equity and excellence of student outcomes.
There are also views that while district offices are essential, they are ill-equipped to support schools, especially in improving teaching and learning (Honig & Rainey, 2015). One of the primary reasons DOs find it challenging to focus on teaching and learning is the complexity of the work involved in teaching and learning. The reason is the environment in which teaching and learning occur, as it is unpredictable and dispersed across many classrooms (Honig &
Rainey, 2015). Thus, DOs withdraw from teaching and learning issues and focus their energies on operations (Elmore, 1993). Elmore (1993, p. 116) summarises the historical role of the district office as “[K]ey decisions on curriculum and teaching are passed from states to districts, from districts to principals, and from principals to teachers, with little effective focus or guidance.”
What seems to emerge in this section is the importance for educational leaders to prioritise the critical task of supporting teaching and learning. The discussion reaffirms the need to focus on the core, which is the task in the classroom. It indicates that regardless of the education system
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level, leaders cannot lose sight of the fact that their existence is primarily on the critical task of teaching and learning. The discussion also indicates that this core coherently comprises three elements: a teacher, learner, and content. In this study, it seems appropriate that I examine how DOs practice their leadership in supporting teaching and learning and what they understand as their role as district leaders. In the following section, I discuss the importance of district leadership in leading and supporting teaching and learning.