Professional Leadership

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Professional Leadership

• Course EDUC8813
• Professional Leadership
• A definition, model and self appraisal tool for
  professional leadership designed for principals

Duncan Millward, Alysha Thompson, Christine
McLean, Peter Engelbrecht and Rob Padgett
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What is Professional Leadership?

• Defining leadership is a complex task
• Bush (2003) highlights that there is no agreed
  definition of the concept of leadership (p. 5).

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Our Definition of Professional Leadership

• Professional leaders foster learning, student
  achievement and teacher development, lead towards
  a shared vision and undertake a continual process
  of review.

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The Role of the Professional Leader

• Professional leaders perform two roles which
  co-exist
• Control the operation of the profession - a
  management function
• Create a vision which promotes development and
  change - a leadership function.

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Aims of a Professional Leader

• Achieve the highest standards for all students,
  through programmes which enable them to realise
  their full potential as individuals and develop
  the values needed to become quality members of
  New Zealands society.
• Lead teachers towards new practices and new
  developments. They must lead by example, reward
  and foster excellence, facilitate collaborative
  relationships and discussion within the
  profession and respond to pedagogical change.

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A Model of Professional Leadership
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Vision

• Provides a sense of purpose
• Incorporates values and culture
• Reliant on strong relationships, forging a shared
  understanding and working towards a common goal
• Influence, external/internal
• Context dependent
• Bush (2003) suggests vision is increasingly
  regarded as an essential component of effective
  leadership (p. 6).

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Pedagogy

• The methods used to deliver curriculum
• Aim to raise student achievement
• Enhancing professional knowledge
• Integration of current good practice and theory
  to raise student achievement
• Incorporated into professional development and
  life long learners
• Fitzgerald, Gunter and Eaton (2006) see teachers
  as those who lead in productive and pedagogic
  ways are in effect, not teacher-leaders but
  leaders of learning (p. 40).

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Values and Beliefs

• Guiding principals underpinning who we are
• Behaviours aimed at developing the whole student
• Building a school culture
• Sergiovanni (1984) states culture serves as a
  compass setting to steer people in a common
  direction (p. 4).

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Student Achievement and Development

• Core business of teaching and learning
• Data collection and analysis to implement and
  plan an effective programme providing
  opportunities for all students to achieve their
  potential
• Links to professional development and reflection
• Fitzgerald, Gunter, Eaton (2006) conclude there
  can be little doubt that core imperative of
  educational leadership is student learning and
  student achievement (p. 39).

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Professional Development

• Continual cycle of improvement
• Feedback to promote growth
• Recognition of excellence within school staff to
  provide models of best practice
• Principals need to identify needs and provide
  opportunities for staff advancement
• Fitzgerald, Gunter and Eaton (2006) refer to
  teacher learning being at the heart of the
  creation of learning communities.

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Role Modelling

• Modelling high standards and expectations for all
  teachers and students
• Leading by example
• Essential for leaders actions to match their
  words walk the talk
• School vision should be modelled in practice and
  interaction throughout the school community
  Southworth (2004).

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Relationships

• Sharing of knowledge and resources.
• Effective collaboration is reliant on a
  supportive environment where relationships are
  fostered.
• Collaboration team members, community,
  collaborative values, participation in decision
  making, ownership and purpose. (links back to the
  vision).
• Dependent on reciprocal trust
• Harris (2005) states leadership may be
  identified by a number of core leadership
  activities, one of which is the building
  relationships with the school community (p.80).

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Reflection and Review

• Opportunities for teachers to think critically
• Providing feedback
• Links to professional growth
• Recognition of excellence
• Identifies areas of strength and weakness
• Use of appraisal tools for self evaluation and
  measured against the professional standards
• Blasé Blasé (2000) identify a major theme being
  the importance of talking with teachers to
  promote reflection (p. 133).

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Education is the most powerful weapon which you
can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela
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References

• Blasé, J. Blasé, J. (2000). Effective
  instructional leadership Teachers perspectives
  on how principals promote teaching and learning
  in schools. Journal of Educational
  Administration, 38(2), 130-141.
• Bush, T. (2003). Theories of educational
  leadership and management (3rd ed.). London Sage
  Publications.
• Fitzgerald, T. Gunter, H. with Eaton, J.
  (2006). The missing link? Middle leadership in
  schools in New Zealand and England. New Zealand
  Journal of Educational Leadership, 21(1), 29-43.
• Harris, A. (2005). Leading from the chalk-face
  An overview of school leadership. Leadership,
  1(1), 73-87.
• Sergiovanni, T. J. (1984). Leadership and
  excellence in schooling. Educational Leadership,
  February, 4-13.
• Southworth, G. (2004). Primary school leadership
  in context leading small, medium and large sized
  schools. London RoutledgeFalmer.