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Key research evidence
In the Leadership BES (2009), Viviane Robinson, Margie Hohepa, and Claire Lloyd conclude that “school leaders can indeed make a difference to student achievement and well-being” (p. 35). They suggest that pedagogical (rather than transformational) leadership has the greatest impact on learner outcomes. They define pedagogical leadership as leadership that emphasises “the importance of establishing clear, educational goals, planning the curriculum, and evaluating teachers and teaching” (p. 38). They later state that “effective leadership can play an influential role in countering the marked disparities that characterise New Zealand’s performance in literacy, and accelerating the learning of the lowest achievers in the schools” (p. 52).
The Leadership BES identifies five dimensions of effective leadership that appear to have an especially strong impact on learner outcomes. They suggest that learner outcomes are especially affected when leaders:
- promote and participate in teacher learning and development
- establish goals and expectations for teacher and student learning
- participate actively in planning, co-ordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum
- resource teaching and learning strategically
- ensure an orderly and supportive environment for teachers and learners.
This suggests that “the closer educational leaders get to the core business of teaching and learning, the more likely they are to have a positive impact on students” (p. 47).
The Leadership BES makes it clear that effective implementation of these dimensions is contingent upon leaders being able to:
- make administrative decisions that are informed by knowledge about effective pedagogy
- analyse and solve complex teaching and learning problems
- build relational trust and engage in open-to-learning conversations.
Ruth Gorinski and Cheree Shortland-Nuku (2006) link the above understandings about effective leadership with the urgent need to realise the potential of Māori learners. They identify factors that leaders of schools with a significant proportion of Māori learners need to take on board.
- They need to lead with a moral purpose. This means leading with a strong conviction (for example: that realising Māori learner potential is a positive and strongly desirable outcome for Aotearoa New Zealand; that it is urgent that Māori learners meet national achievement expectations at the same level as non-Māori learners; or that it is imperative that the integrity of an indigenous culture be cherished through education).
- They need to attend to the discourses that link to their moral purposes. (This might mean, for example, placing less of a focus on Māori as a minority group and more of a focus on the distinctiveness and potential of Māori as indigenous peoples.) Attending to this particular discourse would mean “less focus on dysfunction … and instead, an increased focus upon identifying opportunities, investing in building collaborative relationships, tailoring resources and initiatives to identified needs, and collaboration and co-construction of innovative practices” (Gorinski and Shortland-Nuku, 2006, pp. 18–19).
- They need to lead for sustainability. This means focusing more on “global solutions than local priorities; scoping the future rather than guarding tradition; strategic visioning rather than risk management; and building networks (including with Māori) rather than seeking autonomy” (ibid., pp. 19–20).