Many of the policy documents and much of the recent literature talk about "leadership" when discussing the role of headteachers and principals of schools. The word is also used when writing about other senior and middle managers. It is a way of showing the difference between what used to be expected of headteachers and what is expected…

Formulates 3 hypotheses based on contingency, congruency, and contextual relationships, and tests them empirically on a dataset of 71 randomly selected Dutch secondary schools. Results show that managerial competence is most obvious during hard times, and that principals need more crisis-management training. (52 references) (MLH)