Distributed leadership is one of the most influential and well-discussed ideas to emerge in the field of educational leadership. Prompted by the foundational and seminal work of Spillane et al. (2001) the idea of shared or 'stretched' leadership that incorporates both formal and informal leaders, has been of interest to researchers, policy-makers…

This article outlines the findings from a contemporary review of the evidence base on system leaders and system leadership. This article provides analysis, commentary, and insights about system leaders and system leadership based on a review of the current evidence. The review also includes insights from country experts and offers country-specific…

This article draws upon the educational leadership knowledge base to explore central concepts, questions, and issues of relevance to the contemporary policy context in Wales. The article is not a review of the leadership literature, but rather it explores the empirical evidence to address three key questions that are critical to school and system…

This article provides a review of the contemporary instructional leadership research base in Malaysia. The core aim of this review is to assess the recent knowledge base on instructional leadership in Malaysia and to evaluate its current contribution to the existing international literature. The article explores a range of published material that…

In 2008, the authors published an article in this journal entitled "Seven Strong Claims about Successful School Leadership" (Leithwood, Harris, and Hopkins 2008). The article was based on a major literature review that was summarised in a paper published by the National College for School Leadership in England. Both the National College…

Purpose: Over the past several decades, instructional leadership has gradually gained increasing currency as a key role of school principals throughout much of the world. This is also the case in Malaysia where educational research, policy and practice have brought the instructional leadership role of the principal front and center. The purpose of…

Principal preparation and training is generally viewed as an important contributor to school and system improvement. While the international evidence based on leadership and leadership development is extensive, contemporary accounts of principal preparation in a number of Asian countries are not widespread. This article outlines the findings from…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the findings from a small-scale, exploratory, study of principals' instructional leadership practice in Malaysian primary schools. The dimensions and functions of instructional leadership, explicitly explored in this study, are those outlined in the Hallinger and Murphy's (1985) model.…

This article provides an overview of the literature concerning successful school leadership. It draws on the international literature and is derived from a more extensive review of the literature completed in the early stage of the authors' project. The prime purpose of this review is to summarise the main findings from the wealth of empirical…

Teachers might be working significantly more with one another, but principals are not. Superintendents might bring principals together for district meetings or even to expose their performance results to colleagues in public, but principal collaboration is too often trumped by district control. Even worse, more and more schools and their…

Distributed leadership is an idea that is growing in popularity. There is widespread interest in the notion of distributing leadership although interpretations of the term vary. A distributed leadership perspective recognises that there are multiple leaders and that leadership activities are widely shared within and between organisations. A…

This article considers the ways in which distributed forms of leadership can positively influence school development and change. The article focuses on the findings from an initial evaluation and impact assessment of a leadership programme provided by the "Specialist Schools and Academies Trust" for teachers in their first five years of teaching.…

This article considers the challenges and issues facing school leaders in the implementation of Every Child Matters. It outlines the factors that contribute to the effective delivery of Every Child Matters and outlines some of the barriers that make the delivery of this agenda more difficult. The article concludes that school leaders play a…

A distributed perspective offers a new and important theoretical lens through which leadership practice in schools can be reconfigured and re-conceptualized. However, contemporary discourse about distributed leadership theory remains a way of analysing rather than describing leadership practice. While the research suggests that distributed forms…

Teacher leadership is a concept that is gaining increasing interest from both practitioners and researchers. This article presents findings from three case studies in the UK that can be characterized as exhibiting developed, emergent and restricted teacher leadership. Differences and similarities between the schools were examined, leading us to…