Purpose: Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that places great emphasis on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. This study explored the enabling factors of instructional leadership in subject coordinators. Design/methodology/approach: The participants in this qualitative study were 24 subject coordinators in…

Purpose: The study's main goal is to investigate different leadership styles that characterize middle-level leaders, the intermediate leadership tier of role holders in school, as they practice leadership scenarios through active participation in a professional learning process of role-play simulation, using a social-ecological approach.…

Purpose: This study addresses a gap in the knowledge on how longitudinal engagement in a school improvement initiative influences change in middle leaders' (MLs') interactions and assesses how school-university partnerships around school improvement can support teachers with formal leadership roles (i.e. MLs') leadership development.…

Purpose: The current study investigated the impact of organisational trust on emotional well-being and performance of middle leaders during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: A convenience sample of 265 middle leaders in kindergartens in China responded involving trust in schools (e.g. trust in principal…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine leading from the middle, which is consistent with calls to distribute leadership, while expanding the direction of influence, from the normal top-down to include a bottomup or lateral direction. The paper proposes that the position of the vice-principal enables the role incumbent to lead from the…

Purpose: This article investigates goal pursuit practices in a sample of 31 New Zealand high schools. It examines goal knowledge of middle and senior leaders, the alignment of this knowledge and factors related to improvement. Design/methodology/approach: Goals from schools' annual improvement plans were identified and counted at the beginning of…

Purpose: Relying on information processing and attribution theories, which relate to the formation of leadership perceptions and attributes, the current study seeks to examine the relationship between demographic variables and principals' systems thinking (PST) in an integrated model. The present study purpose was threefold: first, the study seeks…

Purpose: In order to fill the gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge about the characteristics of principal workload, the purpose of this paper is to explore the components of principal workload as well as its determinants and the coping strategies commonly used by principals to face this personal state. Design/methodology/approach:…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the findings from research on the relationship between leadership theory and policy reform in Malaysia. Distributed leadership is normatively preferred in the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB), the country's major policy reform document. The research was conducted in two dissimilar…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate ethical leadership in the context of the Arab educational system in Israel. It questions the relations of ethical leadership dimensions with decision making as well as background characteristics of the educational leaders. Design/methodology/approach: Arab educational leaders (n=150) from…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on an exploratory study regarding the present situation of middle managers in schools; their professional development needs; and requirements of middle leaders for quality school management so that contents of existing professional development programmes could be improved to meet the needs of middle…

Compares self-reported survey data from magnet-school principals to those of neighborhood school principals to ascertain if administrator roles differ in choice environments. Despite market theorists' predictions, findings suggest that magnet schools do little to alter principal roles (as entrepreneurs, middle managers, or instructional leaders).…

The findings reported here are part of a larger study of the role of middle managers in the UK further education colleges. The study proposes and discusses a typology for the middle manager role, analyses factors which facilitate and impede managers in role, and models the interaction of the college environment with the role. This process gives…