Leading a school through change – principals’ hands-on leadership strategies in school reform

ABSTRACT

Principal’s hands-on strategies reflecting their theories of changing have a substantial effect on the development of their schools and on how the large-scale reform takes root. The study explores five comprehensive school principals’ leadership strategies during a large-scale school reform in Finland. The principals’ strategies in the middle of reform acknowledged the process nature of leading and involved coherence-making. The inclusive and learning-oriented strategies were applied quite consistently in terms of the horizontal, but not so much in the vertical coherence-making. Exclusive strategies we used to decrease teachers’ workload. Principals’ theories of changing seem to focus on creating and protecting teachers’ opportunities for meaningful learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational change
• leadership
• leadership strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Tiina Soini is Research Director at the School of Education, University of Tampere, Finland, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research interests are in the learning and well-being of educational communities, with a special focus on teacher communities in comprehensive school.

Dr Janne Pietarinen is Professor of teacher education at the School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education, University of Eastern Finland, Finland, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Tampere. His research interests are in educational transitions, pupil and teacher learning, and well-being in the context of sustainable school development.

Dr Kirsi Pyhältö is Research Director at the Research and Development Centre for University Pedagogy, University of Helsinki and Professor of Educational Science at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oulu. Her research interests include learning, well-being and professional agency of in-service teachers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.