Abstract
So far little are the studies that have focussed on exploring school principals’ self-conception of their distributed leadership competencies in relation to their managerial and teaching experience. To do so, an exploratory research was carried out with a sample of 163 pre-service and in-service school principals studying a Master’s programme in School Management, Innovation and Leadership at a Spanish University. Data were obtained by using an Ad hoc questionnaire of 7 units of competence and 5 proficiency levels for each unit, based on an existing rubric to analyse students’ self-conception of their development of leadership competencies. The findings of this preliminary study show statistically significant differences in the self-perception in all dimensions associated to Managerial Experience (ME) and Teaching Experience (TE) in schools. Study participants with ME showed statistically higher levels than those who had non-ME in four of seven dimensions: lead the school organisation, address the needs of the students, manage the organisation of the school organisation, and manage administrative work. Similar results were obtained in relation to TE versus non-TE were statistically significant differences are found in six dimensions: manage pedagogical and didactic resources, attend to the needs of students, manage didactic strategies, manage the organisation of the school organisation, manage the link between the school organisation and the community, and lead the school organisation. This study shows the importance of teaching and professional experience to acquire leadership competencies in education, therefore the school principal should also be a teacher. This preliminary study provides insights into the relevance of providing pre-service or in-service school principals with training and professional development programmes on sustainability distributed leadership that enable them to genuinely engage the school community, develop innovative pedagogies and lead the process of change toward building more sustainable schools.
Highlights
Educational transformation toward sustainability requires effective leadership, leaders who are capable of: translating vision into a comprehensive transformative change process; negotiating the change process with the different organisation agents and at the different institutional levels; assisting and including staff and the community; and being decisive and transparent (Fullan, 2003; Scott et al, 2012)
The analysis revealed that school principals in Cyprus are poorly equipped for their new role as leaders of sustainable schools and agents of change, and focussed on exploring suitable forms, content and approaches for their professional development on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
From an overview, putting together the four analyses carried out previously, the general results of this research reflect statistically significant differences in the self-perception of participation in all dimensions, having higher values in the participants with more Teaching Experience (TE) and Managerial Experience (ME). The results of this preliminary study are in line with previous studies such as the one carried out by Coggins and McGovern (2014), where it was concluded that educational leadership significantly contributes to the improvement of the outcomes of teaching and learning processes, empowering teachers to formulate improvements to increase the effectiveness of the learning environment and student tracking
Summary
Educational transformation toward sustainability requires effective leadership, leaders who are capable of: translating vision into a comprehensive transformative change process; negotiating the change process with the different organisation agents and at the different institutional levels; assisting and including staff and the community; and being decisive and transparent (Fullan, 2003; Scott et al, 2012). The existing literature shows that further embedment of sustainability in pre-service teacher education, and specific training and professional development programmes on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for teachers and school principals are required to genuinely engage the school community in sustainability and to put in practice the leadership approaches necessary to build sustainable schools (Zachariou et al, 2013; Dyment and Hill, 2015; Ortega-Sánchez et al, 2020). Despite the acknowledgement of the importance of leadership for achieving the integration of sustainability within schools, no agreed or common ESD leadership framework for schools or educational institutions exists and no research has documented this type of leadership in schools in a systematic way, without transcending good practices or specific case studies (Hallinger and Suriyankietkaew, 2018; Dries Verhelst et al, 2020)
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