From the end of my run: Emergence of the next chapter of leadership

Abstract

As an experienced consultant I have had the opportunity of working closely with multiple school and other leaders. In the recent past I have supported three Principals new to schools with an extremely modest track record and performance level.

 

This engagement has been fascinating, and offered the opportunity to explore some of the issues experienced by these, and I suspect, many other Principals, using a phenomenological approach – drawing on their lived experiences.

 

This process led me to a period of deep reflection based on over 40 years of experience in the higher education sector assisting and supporting Principals, focused Principal and leadership development, and social justice. The phenomena I encountered appeared to coalesce around four areas simply described as:

• Form and function.
• Being an effective person
• Change Leadership
• Education and the future
• Family, community, schools and learning.

 

These are not new areas of research! However, they led me to develop 10 questions that I have used to explore the Principals’ perspectives of what their future school might look like. Using semi-structured interviews within a dialogic framework, we explored their perspectives of their future leadership questions. The Principals claimed that the questioning process assisted them in multiple ways to explore and clarify their thinking.

 

This presentation will explore those 10 questions in the hope of stimulating leadership thinking about schooling, education, leading – all through a futures-orientated lens.

Biography