System leadership is a developing concept and practice increasingly seen as a tool for school improvement, as policymakers switch from traditional top-down reform to professional models of schools working collaboratively. System leadership is being championed by the Scottish College for Educational Leadership (SCEL), but is still in its infancy in…

While the literature on professional learning communities (PLCs) has proliferated, much of it derived from and contextualised in Anglo-American settings, the concept and practice of PLCs in Asian contexts of strong hierarchies have largely been ignored. Based on literature and documentary analysis, this paper investigates the systemic…

The aim in writing this book is to explore the relationships between school leadership and culture. Educational leadership is a socially bounded process. It is subject to the cultural traditions and values of the society in which it is exercised. In this it is no different from other social processes. It thus manifests itself in different ways in…

This article addresses the international positioning and role of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). The article argues that the college stands as an initiator, exporter, importer and disseminator of leadership research and practice and that the role it adopts in regard to these will determine its international influence. The first…

For too long, leadership has been researched and written about without taking account of context and societal culture. This article takes as its context under researched multi-ethnic urban schools, and looks at leadership--specifically five successful head teacher case studies--of these schools. The research project that it reports was carried out…