Article - Leadership Matters Framework

By MIchael Fox – SuperSelf Success Coaching

The role of public school principals has changed significantly since the 1980s with the increasing decentralisation of school management. Principals are now “CEOs” of medium sized businesses. Often directly responsible for over 100 staff they have on any one day 1,000 or more clients on site. These new CEOs have to continue to be educational experts while becoming experts in finance, media/stakeholder management as well as visionary community leaders.

These reforms, in Australia and many other countries, are driven by globalisation but, at a practical school level, manifest as devolution of decision-making to schools then, by necessity, within schools. Combined with increasing government intervention over educational outcomes and a focus on performance, efficiency and accountability there is a significant risk that education may lose out to business imperatives. Therefore Education Queensland introduced the Leadership Matters Framework in 2006 to guide leadership development and outline essential leadership capabilities required of principals.¹ The purpose of this article is to explore use of the Leadership Matters Framework in development of educational leaders.

Leadership Matters Framework

The core purpose of schools is learning, so education provides the context for leadership development. Therefore, at the Framework centre, Educational Leadership capabilities provide a holistic view of the school environment and focus leaders on emerging local, national and international developments in education relevant to their students and community. For many this is the most difficult step, as the “Teacher” lets go of their need for in-depth subject area knowledge and the “Administrator” lets go of detailed day-to-day control of school operations.

Leader as Agent or Interpreter

Letting go of “comfortable” roles is vital to allow educational leaders the time and mind space to focus on the broad range of issues in the external environment that impact of the school community. The Principal also acts as an agent for emerging trends in education or changes driven by government, and needs to interpret the external information and establish relevance in the local context so the whole school community is engaged – students and parents, as well as teachers - in discussions about pedagogy, curriculum content and educational outcomes.

1. Technical Paper: Leadership Matters – leadership capabilities for Education Queensland principals, 2006

Download the full article to learn more about:

the leadership capabilities surrounding this core educational purpose such as personal, relational, intellectual and organisational capabilities
the trust quadrant of character versus competence
the leadership continuum and contrasts between the management skills of technicians, managers and CEOs