Internationally minded schools as cultural artefacts: Implications for school leadership

Abstract

This article adopts a non-rational, existential, subjective approach to school leadership, on the assumption that rational models provide useful pointers on mechanics such as time management, coaching and staff evaluation, but are less appropriate for grasping the essence of leadership which resides in managing interpersonal relationships and the individual interpretation of reality. A view of internationally minded schools as complex cultural artefacts is explored with reference to scholars of organisation theory and cultural dimensions. Schools are a repository of societal cultures which the leadership attempts to weave into a cohesive tapestry of educational vision and commitment, and this, in turn, becomes the organisational culture. Implications for leadership awareness and behaviour stemming from this perspective are that there are no fixed ways of construing social reality, artistic and literary images are helpful for unravelling social reality, and reflection on whether social reality is individually or collectively defined. The article concludes with discussion of an appropriate style for successfully leading internationally minded schools conceived as cultural artefacts.