When studying any topic, definitions are crucial, so that you can understand what you are studying. What struck me about many of the readings in this module is that they are written in 'business speak', a lifeless form of English that sends the reader to sleep. (If you don't know what I'm referring to, have a read of Don Watson's book, Death Sentence. ) This drab English has made the first week of study hard to grasp, but I've done my best. In fact, I've found a reference that is a lot easier to understand, called Bush and Middlewood. See below.
So, what is leadership? Firstly, it's different to management - that's to do with maintaining things. Leadership is about people. It's an influence exerted by someone to get others to act, generally in line with the values of the group or organisation that they all belong to. Leadership is also supposed to involve developing and articulating a vision. But is vision a good thing? A leader full of vision would include Nelson Mandela, a man who brought about the end of an oppressive social construct. But one could also argue that Hitler had vision, as he lead a generation of humanity into a very dark place.
There are different types of leadership and the particular one in vogue seems to be transformational leadership. This relies heavily on the issue of vision. In relation to education, it's asking for the commitment of teachers to the goals of the education department all the way through to the goals of the school board. It seems to me that if staff are opposed in an ideological sense to a policy such as NAPLAN, that the notion of transformational leadership falls flat.
Transactional leadership focusses more on a reward system - you act this way, and you will be rewarded with a pay rise, for instance.
Moral leadership was very apparent when I worked in a Catholic boarding school overseas. There was no way you could live on campus with a partner, unless you were married. Two staff members were sacked or resigned in rather scandalous circumstances. We also were encouraged to make the children say morning and afternoon prayers each day and if we didn't attend Mass each week our position was in jeopardy. The board kept a very sharp eye on everyone's moral compass.
There is also instructional leadership, managerial leadership, participative leadership, distributed leadership, emotional leadership, postmodern leadership and contingent or strategic leadership. I need to keep reading to get my head around all this.
Bush, T and Middlewood, D (2013). Leading and Managing People in Education (3rd Ed). Los Angeles: Sage Publications
