Realisation of strategic leadership in leadership teams' work as experienced by the leadership team members of basic education schools

Abstract

This article introduces a quantitative research into how the leadership team members of 49 basic education schools in the city of Vantaa, Finland, experienced the realisation of strategic leadership in their leadership teams' work. The data were collected by a survey of 24 statements, rated on a five-point Likert scale, and analysed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The only variant explaining the differences in experiencing the realisation of strategic leadership in the leadership teams' work statistically, almost significantly, was the leadership team membership.

Keywords:

• strategic leadership
• strategic planning
• strategy implementation
• strategy evaluation
• leadership team

Strategic leadership

Strategy is a planning system for designing and controlling both decision-making and the future according to Mintzberg (1994, 5–23), or a framework formed by the choices determining the character of an organisation's functions (Freedman and Tregoe 2003, 17). Further, it is viewed as a combination of made decisions that steer an organisation's behaviour (Ansoff and McDonnell 1990, 43). Kirveskari (2003, 69) summarises that strategy always deals with both future time and space. It is a model that combines the most essential goals, principles of action and tactics into an integrated entity.

Strategic leadership is implementing the strategies. It has the ability to perceive entities and to make conclusions from the environment (Toikka 2002, 139). Strategic leadership is a purposeful leadership activity which takes place across a longer timeline. For advancing strategic thinking and strategic readiness, it is a worthwhile and viable instrument, also in leading schools (Mäkelä 2007, 55). Strategic leadership is not only for the leaders. What is codified in paperwork is not what matters, but that which is in people's thoughts (Kamensky 2000, 30–35). In fact strategic leadership is a general concept, which simultaneously refers to a strategy as an entity as well as to its separate elements (Rannisto 2005, 67–68). In this research we consider the elements of strategic leadership to consist of planning the strategy, implementing the strategy and evaluating the strategy (see also Poister and Streib 2005, 46). This view is supported by Huotari (2009, 52), according to whom strategic leadership appears as a cycle, where these three elements are followed and nourished by each other.

Strategic planning is the first element of strategic leadership (Poister and Streib 2005, 46). It is necessary because of the predictability of the environments being difficult due to rapid change (Toikka 2002, 113). Strategic planning combines systematic retrieval and use of data to determine the direction for the long-term timeline. It is a mixture of cogitating the future, analysing the goals and evaluating the priorities. It is about ensuring the viability and effectiveness of the organisation with the means of mapping the direction for future action (Poister and Streib 2005, 46). Strategic planning also encompasses the creation of the organisational mission, vision and strategies (Huotari 2009, 55).

Strategic planning is useful only when it is connected to implementing the strategy (Poister and Streib 2005, 46). Strategic leadership has to focus on the objectives defined in the strategy, and for the strategy to be functional, the work of the whole staff has to be aligned with what is defined in the strategy (Rannisto 2005, 72, 79–80). Working in line with the strategy implies how the staff are induced to commit themselves to the strategy and to put it into effect in their daily work (Huotari 2009 59). Strategic vision can only be achieved by the commitment and loyalty of the staff to it (Chew and Chong 1999, 1036). The level of commitment depends on how close and important the strategy implementation is perceived to be. If the strategy is not opened in discussions and brought close to the practice, its significance remains superficial and alien. This decreases the will to commit to the work. Understanding and perceiving the entity are therefore important for launching the strategy to the field (Karikoski 2009, 60). An employer can take responsibility for the development of their own strategic capacity only when they are conscious of the long-term strategic direction and vision (Kirveskari 2003, 79).

Neither is strategic leadership possible without systematic data about organisational performance. Measuring the performance must be future oriented, and a means of conveying to the staff the factors important to the organisation (Toikka 2002, 136). Well-functioning strategy evaluation renders a clear view into how and how frequently the realisation of the strategy is evaluated in the organisation. On the basis of the feedback available from the evaluation, the staff can reform the strategy together, or alter their performance and capacity into a direction better in line with the strategy (Huotari 2009, 61).

Strategic leadership as a part of educational leadership in the city of Vantaa

In view of developing the Finnish basic education, it is advisable to pay attention not only to the learning outcomes but also to the factors that distinctly advance the prerequisites of learning for the students and the entire school community (Ministry of Education [MoE] 2010, 10). These prerequisites are described by the quality criteria of basic education, a leadership tool for evaluating and developing performance. The quality criteria consist of 11 quality cards, of which one deals with leadership. In the quality card for leadership, the MoE (2010, 30–31) emphasises creating the strategies for the schools. The leadership of a school must commit itself to realising the strategies and to monitoring their impacts. Plans concerning teaching must be connected to the strategies, the realisation of which is the responsibility of the principal and the persons who on the basis of the decision on delegation of authority have been allocated leadership responsibilities. The values documented in the strategy must be visible and implemented in the daily work of a school and attributable to leadership. The MoE (2010, 17) further states that in addition to the school leadership, all the staff should be aware of the core strategic areas and the long- and short-term objectives set to work and performance.

Also the city of Vantaa as an education provider has paid attention to the significance of strategic leadership. The strategies of the city turn into practice via leadership (Budget book of the City of Vantaa [BBoCV] 2007, 19). Performance-based work is directly linked to the city strategy (BBoCV 2009, 26). The functions and leadership systems of the budgetary areas are to support realising the strategy of the organisation (BBoCV 2011, 26). In March 2010, after hearing the principals and the leadership team of the basic education division, the director of basic education set the strategic objectives for basic education for the school years 2010–2011, 2011–2012 and 2012–2013. The strategic goals for the school year 2010–2011 were to utilise e-learning pedagogy and to develop the forms of pedagogical support. Besides setting the goals, the basic education director ordered the district principals to conduct discussions with the school leadership teams, the central aim of which was to clarify the strategic goals and to ensure that strategic leadership would become a part of the performance culture of the schools. The discussions were due in the autumn of 2010 and in the spring of 2011.

Leadership teams

While leadership research used to focus on mainly the top and middle management of the organisations, in the past few decades the focus has aligned more to the strategic leadership exercised by the leader and the leadership team (Yukl 2006, 353). This phenomenon is evident also in school leadership research. Leadership is no longer considered to be the stake of only the principals, but participation in decision-making begins from the members of the school community. The ideal of strategic leadership cannot be attributed to only one person, but it calls for the cooperation of the key persons of the organisation (Cunningham 1994, 38–39). Consequently, particularly the principals of large schools should lead their schools together with the leadership teams (Hulpia and Devos 2009, 154).

The leadership team members participating in decision-making enhance their understanding of and commitment to the implementation stage of the strategy (Yukl 2006, 365; Kim 2002, 233). When assessing the goal orientation of the team, the focus is on how well the organisational vision has been internalised and how well the team is capable of putting the strategy into everyday practice (Taipale 2004, 92). The central task of the leadership team is to transfer the vision and the strategy into practice, to make them a daily part of every employee's work (Karikoski 2009, 43).

Leadership teams as a part of the educational leadership structure in the city of Vantaa

The budget of the city of Vantaa (2009, 25–26) states that good leadership teamwork is an integral part of the core leadership system of the city, contributing to guaranteeing the attainment of the objectives. The budgets (2009, 25–26; 2010, 23) urge the leadership teamwork to be supported by coaching. In the budget of 2011 (26), the development of the leadership teams is expected to continue with both open and tailored leadership team training.

The director of basic education made a decision in the beginning of the school year 2007–2008 that each of the 49 basic education schools should have a leadership team, the leadership and development of which would be the responsibility of the principal. The decision was aimed at advancing shared leadership as well as the strategic leadership approach (Hirvonen 2011). At the same time a school-year-long pilot project was launched to train school leadership teams. Six schools participated in the pilot project. The rest of the leadership teams were trained in the next three school years in stages, so that in spring 2011 the leadership teams of all 49 schools had been trained. In the training programme strategic leadership was defined as a process, a kind of continuous strategism consisting of planning, implementation and evaluation (Aminoff 2011). A leadership team's core task is to support the principal in leading and developing the school. Despite the city-level guidelines, individual principals hold a great deal of autonomy regarding how they prefer to arrange the work of their leadership team. Due to this, the leadership teams may vary considerably from each other in regard to their ways of working, numbers of members and their composition. A rather typical basic composition is that the teacher members of the leadership teams are also chairpersons or conveners of various subject teacher or work groups.

Data collection, research methods and research questions

This research was conducted with a survey consisting of 24 statements, where the respondents rated strategic leadership and the realisation of its three components: strategic planning, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation in the work of their own leadership teams, using a five-point Likert scale. Each component, i.e. factor, consisted of eight statements or variants, and their order was intentionally non-successive in the survey. The factor variants are described below.

Strategic planning factor variants

1. Variant: The leadership team participates in creating the strategies of the school

2. Variant: The direction of future action to be taken is mapped in the leadership team

3. Variant: The leadership team has participated in creating the vision

4. Variant: The leadership team has participated in creating the values

5. Variant: The leadership team has participated in creating the mission

6. Variant: The leadership team collects data to define the long-term direction

7. Variant: Data collection for defining the long-term direction is systematic

8. Variant: The leadership team uses the collected data to define the long-term direction.

Strategy implementation factor variants

1. Variant: The leadership team leads the school together in line with the agreed values

2. Variant: The leadership team leads the school together towards the jointly agreed vision

3. Variant: The leadership team leads the school according to the objectives agreed on in the strategy

4. Variant: The leadership team members are committed to realising the strategies

5. Variant: The leadership team members perform according to the agreed strategy

6. Variant: The leadership team members open the meaning of the strategy to the other teachers

7. Variant: The decisions made in the leadership team are in line with the strategies

8. Variant: The plans made in the leadership team are in line with the strategies.

Strategy evaluation factor variants

1. Variant: The leadership team monitors the effectiveness of the strategies

2. Variant: The leadership team collects evaluation data of the realisation of the strategy

3. Variant: Data collection about the realisation of the strategy is systematic

4. Variant: Evaluation data about the realisation of the strategy influences the leadership team's work

5. Variant: The leadership team deals with the evaluation data collected about the realisation of the strategy

6. Variant: The leadership team readjusts the strategy on the basis of the evaluation data

7. Variant: The leadership team considers the evaluation data collected about the realisation of the strategy with the teachers

8. Variant: The leadership team ensures the availability of the evaluation data collected about the realisation of the strategy to the teachers.

The data were collected on 17 March 2011 in a convention and training event organised by the city of Vantaa basic education budgetary area, where all the 259 leadership team members had been invited. At the end of the event a total of 187 leadership team members filled out the survey. The response rate was 72%, which can be regarded as good; 141 respondents were female and 45 were male. Seventy respondents worked in a principal's, an assistant principal's or a vice principal's position. The other respondents comprised 63 class teachers, 35 subject teachers and 16 special education teachers. One hundred and ten of the respondents worked in lower-level comprehensive (primary) school (grades 1–6), 37 in upper-level comprehensive school (grades 7–9) and 37 in comprehensive basic education school (grades 1–9). One hundred and forty-nine respondents were master's degree holders and 35 respondents had a lower degree.

The research questions were as follows:

• Does the respondents' experience verify the theory-based division of realising strategic leadership by strategic planning, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation?

• Do the experiences of the respondents from lower, upper and comprehensive basic education schools differ from each other in regard to the realisation of the three components of strategic leadership?

• Do the experiences of the respondents with class teacher, subject teacher and special education teacher backgrounds differ from each other in regard to the realisation of the three components of strategic leadership?

• Do the experiences of the respondents in a principalship position differ from those of the other respondents in regard to the realisation of the three components of strategic leadership?

• Does the respondent's age, teacher or leadership team experience have an effect on their experience of the realisation of the three components of strategic leadership?

• Does the respondent's gender and education level have an effect on their experience of the realisation of the three components of strategic leadership?

Factor analysis and sum variables

Drawing on the theory of strategic leadership, we researched strategic leadership with three measurements: planning, implementation and evaluation. Each measurement consisted of eight factors derived from theory. In confirmatory factor analysis the factor consistencies are measured by using Cronbach's alpha. Due to the missing values we used the variant means belonging to the factors. The reliability of the strategic planning factor was good with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.865. The reliability of the strategic implementation factor was high with a value of 0.912, whereas the reliability of the strategic evaluation was good with a value of 0.891. None of the factor reliabilities was artificially improved by omitting any variant derived from theory. Each of the three factors was consistent, proving the validity of the construction of the three sum variables.

The scale of the linear interdependence of the three sum variables was studied by using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The coefficient r between strategic planning and implementation was 0.831, that between strategic planning and evaluation was 0.846, whereas the coefficient r between strategic implementation and evaluation became 0.726. The Sig. value of each was 0.000 <0.001. In sum, it can be stated that a strong positive linear interdependence exists between the three sum variables, which is statistically very significant.

Because of the strong positive interdependence of the three sum variables, it might have been justified to form only one strategic leadership variable. However, the sum variables describe diverse parts of strategic leadership, and therefore, in order to retrieve more specific information, they were studied separately.

Differences in lower-level comprehensive, upper-level comprehensive and comprehensive basic education schools

On the five-point Likert scale, the leadership team members evaluating the work of their own leadership teams, rendered that strategic planning was realised with a value of 4.1, strategic implementation with a value of 4.3 and strategic evaluation with a value of 3.8. On the basis of comparing the means, in all the three types of schools – lower comprehensive, upper comprehensive and comprehensive basic education schools – the implementation of strategy was considered to be the best realised sector of strategic leadership, and the evaluation of strategy the component implemented the weakest. The leadership team members of the comprehensive schools considered each strategic leadership sector to be realised better than did those from the lower or the upper comprehensive schools.

However, in one-way analysis of variance the differences between schools did not prove to be statistically significant. They were at their strongest at the strategy evaluation sum variable with the Sig. value of 0.056>0.050. Though the result is not statistically quite significant, it is worth mentioning that the leadership team members of the comprehensive schools perceived the three components of strategic leadership to be realised better than did those from the lower and the upper comprehensive schools.

Differences between various teacher and professional groups

According to the results of the one-way analysis of variance, the experiences of the class teachers, subject teachers, principals and special education teachers concerning the realisation of the three strategic leadership components did not diverge from each other in a statistically significant manner.

By recoding the data, the respondents were divided into two groups – those in a principal's position and other leadership team members. Based on the comparison of the means, the experience of those in a principal's position about the realisation of strategic leadership differed from that of the other respondents in that their estimate of strategy implementation was more positive (Table 1). With the Sig. value of 0.042 it was statistically almost significant.

Table 1. Means and standard deviations in experiences of respondents with a principal's position.

Experiences of respondents with a principal's position		Strategic planning	Strategy implementation	Strategy evaluation
Principal, assistant/vice principal	Mean	4.0893	4.3554	3.9339
	N	70	70	70
	Standard deviation	0.64132	0.54117	0.67154
Teacher	Mean	4.0943	4.1952	3.7979
	N	114	114	114
	Standard deviation	0.53126	0.49835	0.58529
Total	Mean	4.0924	4.2561	3.8496
	N	184	184	184
	Standard deviation	0.57390	0.51948	0.62125

In contrast, the differences concerning the strategic planning and strategy evaluation were not statistically significant (Table 2). The homogeneity test of the sum variables supports this conclusion by proving the variances of the sum variables to be sufficiently equal with both the respondents in a principal's position, and with the other respondents, the Sig. value being >0.05.

Table 2. One-way analysis of variance, differences between respondents in a principal's position and teachers.

Differences between respondents in a principal's position and teachers		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	Significant values
Strategic planning	Between groups	0.001	1	0.001	0.003	0.954
	Within groups	60.272	182	0.331
	Total	60.273	183
Strategy implementation	Between groups	1.113	1	1.113	4.196	0.042
	Within groups	48.271	182	0.265
	Total	49.384	183
Strategy evaluation	Between groups	0.803	1	0.803	2.092	0.150
	Within groups	69.825	182	0.384
	Total	70.628	183

Differences according to teacher and leadership team experience

The Spearman rank order coefficient was used to study the linear dependence between the leadership team members' experience of the three strategic leadership components and the years of teaching experience and the years in a leadership team. Leadership team experience accounts for a linear dependence on the experience of the realisation of strategy implementation and strategy evaluation. The coefficient of leadership team experience and strategy implementation is only 0.194, but, despite this, the interdependence is statistically significant with the Sig. value of 0.009< 0.01. The coefficient of leadership team experience and strategy evaluation is 0.207, and the linear dependence is indicated by the Sig. value of 0.005<0.01 to be statistically relevant (Table 3). With growing leadership team experience, the perception about the realisation of strategic planning and strategy evaluation improves.

Table 3. Spearman's rank order correlation coefficient; differences according to leadership team experience in years.

Differences according to leadership team experience in years		Strategic planning	Strategy implement-ation	Strategy evaluation	Leadership team member (years)
Strategic planning	Correlation coefficient	1.000	0.802	0.833	0.128
	Sig. value (2-tailed)		0.000	0.000	0.086
	N	187	187	187	182
Strategy implementation	Correlation coefficient	0.802	1.000	0.709	0.194
	Sig. value (2-tailed)	0.000		0.000	0.009
	N	187	187	187	182
Strategy evaluation	Correlation coefficient	0.833	0.709	1.000	0.207
	Sig. value (2-tailed)	0.000	0.000		0.005
	N	187	187	187	182
Respondent's leadership team experience in years	Correlation coefficient	0.128	0.194	0.207	1.000
	Sig. value (2-tailed)	0.086	0.009	0.005
	N	182	182	182	182

The scatter plot indicates that the deviations in regard to the perception of both the strategic leadership components and the realisation of strategic leadership as an entity decrease with the increase of respondents' years in a leadership team. To gain more precise information, the respondents were divided into three groups based on the length of their leadership team experience: (1) 1–3 years' experience, (2) 4–10 years' experience, (3) 11 or more years of experience. 51.9% (97 respondents) had 1–3 years of experience, 30.5% (57 respondents) had 4–10 years of experience and 15% (28 respondents) had over 11 years' experience. The comparison of the means in Table 4 shows that the leadership team members with experience of 11 or more years consider the three strategic leadership components to be realised better than do the two other groups with fewer membership years.

Table 4. Means and standard deviations per category of leadership team experience.

Leadership team experience per year group		Strategic planning	Strategy implementation	Strategy evaluation
1–3 years	Mean	4.0619	4.1933	3.7887
	N	97	97	97
	Standard deviation	0.57399	0.52323	0.61087
4–10 years	Mean	4.0263	4.2434	3.7712
	N	57	57	57
	Standard deviation	0.57221	0.52420	0.59351
11 years and over	Mean	4.3170	4.4911	4.2411
	N	28	28	28
	Standard deviation	0.55223	0.43691	0.55894
Total	Mean	4.0900	4.2548	3.8528
	N	182	182	182
	Standard deviation	0.57551	0.51904	0.61736

The differences between the categories of leadership team experience in years were studied with one-way analysis of variance. The difference was at its biggest in regard to strategy evaluation, being statistically significant with the Sig. value of 0.001<0.01. The sum variable of strategy implementation showed the difference of Sig. value 0.027<0.05 to be almost significant. Instead, the sum variable of strategy planning showed no statistical relevance between the three groups of leadership team members (Table 5). The homogeneity test of variances supports this conclusion by indicating the variances of the sum variables to be adequately equal in the three groups with the Sig. values >0.05.

Table 5. One-way analysis of variance, leadership team membership experience in years.

Leadership team membership experience in years		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	Sig. value
Strategic planning	Between groups	1.750	2	0.875	2.692	0.071
	Within groups	58.198	179	0.325
	Total	59.949	181
Strategy implementation	Between groups	1.937	2	0.969	3.703	0.027
	Within groups	46.824	179	0.262
	Total	48.761	181
Strategy evaluation	Between groups	5.000	2	2.500	6.993	0.001
	Within groups	63.985	179	0.357
	Total	68.985	181

Differences according to gender and educational background

Out of the total of 187 respondents, 141 were female and 46 were male. The statistical significance of the differences of means in their responses was tested with one-way analysis of variance. It was deemed relevant to group the education backgrounds of the respondents into two levels and to study their differences with one-way analysis of variance as well. The two groups of education level were (1) those with a graduate degree and (2) those with lower than a graduate degree. Out of the 184 respondents 149 had a graduate degree and 35 a lesser degree. The result was that neither the responses of the two genders nor the two groups with diverse education backgrounds indicated any statistically significant difference concerning the realisation of the three components of strategic leadership.

Results produced by linear regression analysis

In addition to the analysis of variance with singular variants it was deemed necessary to research the inter-variant impact with linear regression analysis. Amongst the singular variants the principal's position and the leadership team experience had proved to have an impact on the perception regarding the realisation of the three strategic leadership components with almost statistical significance. In Finland a principal, in order to gain a tenure, must have previous teacher experience, which is why a principal's position is inevitably connected to experience. Also the educational background of the respondents is connected with experience: due to the degree reform, the oldest class teachers' education level is below the graduate level. On these grounds the factors selected as singular variants into the regression analysis were the principal's position, leadership team experience, educational level, age and teaching experience. Gender was selected as well, due to the majority of the respondents being female.

The regression analysis of Table 6 reveals that leadership team experience accounts best for the perception of realising strategic planning with a Beta value of 0.0233, when the other explanatory factors had been standardised. Also with the Sig. value of 0.024<0.05 the leadership team experience is the only singular explanatory factor with almost statistical significance. The variants involved in the regression analysis account for only 3.9% of the variation in the perception of strategic planning with the R Square value of 0.039.

Table 6. Linear regression analysis, strategic planning.

	Unstandardised coefficients		Standardised coefficients
Strategic planning	B	Standard error	Beta	t	Sig. value
Constant	3.645	0.492		7.413	0.000
Principal's position or other	0.127	0.114	0.107	1.115	0.267
Leadership team experience	0.025	0.011	0.233	2.285	0.024
Gender	0.127	0.105	0.093	1.207	0.229
Graduate degree or lower	−0.129	0.130	−0.087	−0.995	0.321
Age	0.003	0.011	0.050	0.292	0.771
Teacher experience	−0.006	0.011	−0.105	−0.573	0.567

According to regression analysis (Table 7), leadership team experience explains best the experience about the realisation of strategic implementation with a Beta value of 0.174, when the other variants are standardised. However, with the Sig. value 0.086>0.05 the leadership team experience is not a single statistically significant factor. It is noteworthy that a principal's position does not impact experiencing strategy implementation significantly, the other explanatory factors being standardised. The variants included in the regression analysis account for only 5.4% of the variation in experiencing the realisation of strategy implementation.

Table 7. Linear regression analysis, strategy implementation.

	Unstandardised coefficients		Standardised coefficients
Strategy implementation	B	Standard error	Beta	t	Sig. value
Constant	4.221	0.439		9.606	0.000
Principal's position or other	−0.107	0.102	−0.099	−1.046	0.297
Leadership team experience	0.017	0.010	0.174	1.725	0.086
Gender	−0.005	0.010	−0.098	−0.538	0.591
Graduate degree or lower	0.136	0.094	0.111	1.451	0.149
Age	0.008	0.116	0.006	0.068	0.946
Teacher experience	−0.001	0.010	−0.015	−0.086	0.932

In regard to experiencing strategy evaluation, the regression analysis (Table 8) indicates that the leadership team experience accounts for it best with a Beta value of 0.229, with the other explanatory factors standardised. With the Sig. value of 0.025<0.05 the leadership team experience is the only statistically almost significant factor. The other singular variants included in the regression analysis explain the experience about strategy evaluation only weakly: they account with the Square value of 0.055 only for 5.5% of the variation in experiencing this component.

Table 8. Linear regression analysis, strategy evaluation.

	Unstandardised coefficients		Standardised coefficients
Strategy evaluation	B	Standard error	Beta	T	Sig. value
Constant	3.352	0.523		6.415	0.000
Principal's position or other	0.007	0.121	0.005	0.055	0.956
Leadership team experience	0.026	0.011	0.229	2.264	0.025
Gender	−0.004	0.012	−0.063	−0.350	0.726
Graduate degree or lower	0.098	0.112	0.067	0.877	0.382
Age	−0.065	0.138	−0.041	−0.472	0.637
Teacher experience	0.007	0.012	0.101	0.598	0.551

Discussion

In regard to evaluating the external validity, i.e. the generalisability of a research, both the sample and the context of the research should be considered (Metsämuuronen 2006, 117). This research was conducted at the basic education schools in the city of Vantaa, and can therefore be considered a case study. The concepts in focus – leadership team, lower-level comprehensive (primary) school (grades 1–6), upper-level comprehensive school (grades 7–9), comprehensive school (grades 1–9), principal, vice principal, class teacher, subject teacher and special education teacher – are familiar all over Finland due to the acts and decrees of law and school practice. On the basis of the concepts used, the research could be generalisable to the whole of Finland.

However, the research context involves factors that weaken this generalisability: (1) The city of Vantaa has placed an obligation on every school to have a leadership team. (2) Based on the decision of the city of Vantaa, every leadership team has been trained, also from the perspective of strategic leadership. (3) The district principals as superiors of the school principals perform yearly navigation discussions in the leadership team of every school, the central aim of which is to evaluate the realisation of strategic leadership. These context-bound factors are standard practices in the city of Vantaa, but not well known or widely practised in Finland, compared to the nationally uniform prevalence of the core concepts of the research. Hence, full external validity could be aimed at only in similar contexts concerning the focus on strategic leadership in the leadership model and in-service training of the principals and leadership teams to that of the city of Vantaa (e.g. Yin 2003).

As for the internal validity of the research, it is essential to consider whether the measurement tools have measured the phenomenon under research. For this purpose the content and construct validity will be discussed. When developing the measurements, the conceptualisation of dividing strategic leadership into the three components of planning, implementation and evaluation was deducted from the current research literature on strategic leadership (e.g. Ansoff and McDonnell 1990; Chew and Chong 1999; Huotari 2009; Karikoski 2009; Mintzberg 1994; Poister and Streib 2005; Rannisto 2005). The reliability of the measurements was not improved by omitting individual theory-based variants – deteriorating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which on its part contributed to improving the validity of the research content. It turned out that the research results varied according to the theory on the background. The individual variants measuring the three components of strategic leadership – the same theoretical concepts – correlated systematically with each other, which we deem to verify the construct validity of the research.

According to the one-way analysis of variance, the respondents' experiences about the strategy implementation were better amongst those in a principal's position than amongst the other respondents. Instead, the experiences regarding the realisation of strategy planning and strategy evaluation were uniform in the other two groups. Also previous research (e.g. Juuti, Rannikko, and Saarikoski 2004) has verified that people working on varying levels of hierarchy experience matters and events in different ways, depending on their own points of departure.

The above difference may be attributable to the city of Vantaa steering model where on one hand the amount of in-service training of principals in strategic leadership is bigger than with the other respondent groups, and to the regularity of the district principals conducting the twice yearly navigation discussions on the realisation of strategic leadership in the leadership team of each school, which are presided over by the principals. The leadership teams of all the Vantaa schools were trained in the school years 2007–2008, 2008–2009, 2009–2010 and 2010–2011. In addition to this, the leadership team members in a principal's position were trained also in the school year 2010–2011, and the city has provided all the principals with both short- and long-term leadership training in the course of the previously mentioned school years. Typically, the following year's strategy is being planned and the past year's strategy is being evaluated under the leadership of the principal both in the leadership team meetings and with the teachers. In other words, the principals take an active part in strategic planning and strategy evaluation with the teachers and the leadership team.

Instead, the strategy implementation takes place in the classrooms with the teachers working with the students, where a principal's control and awareness of the realisation of strategy in the student context are weaker. This distance may explain some of the fact that those in a principal's position had a significantly better experience of the realisation of strategy implementation compared to the other respondents. The experience about strategic planning as viewed in the theory, comprising systematic retrieval of data to anticipate the future direction to take, building the vision, mission, and the strategy as well as evaluation defined as systematic data retrieval on the performance and the frequency of evaluation, in view of these research findings do not seem to connect firmly to the experience on strategy implementation amongst the other two respondent groups. It is only through this connection that planning and evaluation would be perceived as useful (Huotari 2009; Poister and Streib 2005; Toikka 2002).

In interpreting the above difference in the findings, one must be aware of the fact that Finnish teachers' professionalism and pride in their work are very high, due to their high qualifications, commitment to work, and their high status in the educator community and in society at large. The Finnish teacher is highly autonomous in their classroom teaching and enjoys the full trust of the principal regarding their competence in classroom work, i.e. the strategy implementation in regard to achieving high learning outcomes. On the other hand, though the Finnish schools are led and managed with shared leadership, the micropolitics of the classroom keeps on being the teacher's priority over the perceived macropolitical functions of planning and evaluation of strategy, until in view of these findings, experience in leadership team work increases (Hargreaves, Halász, and Pont 2007; Sahlberg 2011).

Further, rather than conducting evaluation by only collecting systematic data at a certain frequency, the Finnish evaluation system in education is focused on continuous diagnosing and self-evaluation of performance, based on which early intervention measures are implemented in a timely manner to bridge the detected gaps in student performance. As for teacher performance evaluation, it is based on self evaluation, also with peers, and yearly evaluation discussions with the principal, and the same goes for principals' evaluation with their superiors. In brief, the evaluation methods of the GERM movement have not gained ground in Finnish education (Sahlberg 2007, 2011; Simola, Rinne, and Kivirauma 2002). Also, due to the high status of the teachers in the educator community, neither normative nor informative social influence seems to induce the teacher informants to comply or even to conform to the views of the principals or the leadership team members in regards to the experience on strategic leadership.

The data from the one-way analysis of variance indicates that with increasing leadership team experience, the experience of the realisation of strategy implementation and strategy evaluation improves. The scatter plot validates the finding and indicates that the deviation amongst the leadership team members' experience decreases with the increase in their leadership team years. When studying the three groups of leadership team membership duration, 1–3 years, 4–10 years and over 11 years, a clear divergence emerged between the second and third groups. In the group with over 11 years of experience the experiences of the realisation of strategy implementation and evaluation were clearly more favourable than in the other two groups. Further, with the other variants standardised in the regression analysis, the leadership team membership proved to be the only factor explaining the differences experienced with strategic planning and strategy evaluation. It must, however, be noted that leadership team membership is closely connected also to the principal's position as every leadership team in the Vantaa basic education schools is directed by a principal. Also, only a person with previous experience of a basic education teacher's work can be elected a principal.

As referred to above, the teachers have a great deal of autonomy to choose their teaching materials and pedagogical methods as well as to realise their teaching in the classroom in ways they consider purposeful. From this viewpoint the work conducted in the classroom can be labelled as loosely coupled. Its amount usually varies between 18 and 30 weekly hours depending on the teaching obligation and overtime hours. The tightly coupled use of weekly working hours in Finnish school is attributable to the joint planning hours of teachers regulated by the national work conditions contract, which is only three hours per week, when also the teacher autonomy is more limited. Also the leadership team meetings can be regarded as belonging to the tightly coupled working hours. It is possible that a clearly wider experience of tightly coupled work may affect the experience of the realisation of strategic leadership.

The results of this research justify the statement that the experience of the realisation of strategic leadership and its components could be explained by the studied variants only minimally: that of strategic planning to 3.9%, strategy implementation to 5.4% and strategy evaluation to 5.5%. A future relevant research focus would be to study the principal's way of leading the strategic process as well as the interaction between the leadership team members, and with the rest of the teaching staff.

Notes on contributors

Tapio Juhani Lahtero, Ph.D. is director of education in the city of Vantaa. He also works as a part-time lecturer in the Institute of Educational Leadership in the University of Jyväskylä. His research interests include leadership culture and strategic leadership.

Lea Kuusilehto-Awale M.A. is Programme Director of an international master's degree programme and a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Jyväskylä. Her research interests include administrative change, leading diversity, and responsible and caring leadership.