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Leadership and change in schools: personal reflections over the last 30 years

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Abstract

The two fields of leadership studies and school change have increasingly converged over the last 30 years. This paper reviews the origins of the intersection, and the development of research themes in three areas: The role of leaders in shaping and using organizational culture, the agency of teachers in the change process, and the importance of leadership in knowledge use. The conclusion suggests some arenas for further research, and areas of policy application.

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Notes

  1. For the sake of making this a journal-length article, I focus on school change and improvement, and limit discussions of the equally large school effectiveness research arena (see Muijs et al. 2004).

  2. Elinor Farrar passed away before we began writing the book, and Sheila Rosenblum chose to limit her contributions to developing her case studies. Our team was not alone in focusing on the wide adoption of effective schools programs—see for example, Cuban 1998.

  3. The idea of professional community was simultaneously proposed by Talbert and McLaughlin (1994). A recent Google Scholar search using the terms change/leadership/professional community resulted in over 9,000 hits.

  4. Fullan (1993), drawing on our work, has given this perspective pungency by calling it the “ready, fire, aim” change force.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Policy and Administration, University of Minnesota, 330 Wulling Hall, Minneapolis, MN, 55455-0221, USA

    Karen R. Seashore

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  1. Karen R. Seashore
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Correspondence to Karen R. Seashore.

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Professor, appointed 1987 Rodney Wallace Professorship for the advancement of teaching and learning.

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Seashore, K.R. Leadership and change in schools: personal reflections over the last 30 years. J Educ Change 10, 129–140 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-009-9111-4

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