performance among schools, and scale
up best practices or innovations. In
these cases, system leadership comes
from collaboration among principals
rather than from the top down.
Link School Leadership
to Other Reforms
Finding good principals and giving
them better training can make a difference, but they won’t be enough
on their own if school systems have
weak teachers or low and uneven standards. Internationally, the best results
come from explicitly linking efforts to
strengthen the quality of school leaders
with other aspects of reform.
In Ontario, strengthening school
leadership is part of a coherent effort to
build capacity for raising achievement
in literacy and math and reducing the
dropout rate. In Singapore, strong
leaders build on a foundation of
investment in excellent teachers and
high-quality curriculum and assessment.
Redesign Leadership for the Future
There’s a lot of ferment and innovation,
including potentially disruptive innovation, in redesigning the learning
environments of schools to deliver 21st
century skills. These rapid changes
make it challenging to conceptualize
how to prepare leaders for these new
environments. Hong Kong’s preparation
for the principalship, for example,
focuses on leading schools of the future
in a knowledge- and technology-intensive globalized world where students are open to cultural influences
from East and West (Hong Kong Education Bureau, 2012).
Even more profound changes in
leaders’ roles may be on the horizon. In
the age of the Internet, a better image
of leadership may be of leaders in the
middle of a circle rather than at the
top of a pyramid; leaders will be, to
quote Bill Gates, “those who empower
others.” In the age of Twitter, the
effectiveness of leaders may depend
less on administrative powers and more
The definition of
the principal’s role
has changed from
“bells, buildings, and
buses” to a focus on
instructional leadership.
on the capacity to attract followers. In
21st century global and digital learning
environments, the principal’s role may
be to expose students to a wide range
of teachers in and out of school and to
create opportunities for students to use
their knowledge locally and globally.
A Systems Approach
Although schools are increasingly
autonomous, governments can support
the systemwide development of effective
leaders through policy frameworks
and through funding to support a
modern approach to leadership that
focuses on recruitment, training, and
development as well as ongoing support
and feedback. Because this is a relatively
new approach in many countries, a
lot of questions remain unanswered,
including how to build the collective
capacity of leadership teams rather
than just individual leaders and how to
create knowledge management systems
that connect leaders to research and
innovation.
In the United States, districts and
states often tackle the leadership
problem piecemeal. But improvements
must go beyond pockets of excellence
or a couple of quick fixes. We need to
adopt a more systemic approach to
ensure that all our schools have effective
school leaders. EL
References
Asia Society. (2012). Teaching and leadership
for the twenty-first century: The 2012
International Summit on the Teaching Profession. New York: Author.
Duncan, A. (2010, February). Preparing the
teachers and school leaders of tomorrow.
Remarks at the American Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education. Retrieved
from www.ed.gov/news/speeches/
preparing-teachers-and-school-leaders-
tomorrow-secretary-arne-duncans-
remarks-american
Hong Kong Education Bureau. (2012).
Vivien Stewart (vstewart@asiasociety
.org) is senior advisor for education at
Asia Society and author of A World-Class
Education: Lessons from International
Models of Excellence and Innovation
(ASCD, 2012).
