Chapter 4: Defining Change Leadership

Academic literature abounds with different definitions of leadership. This plethora of definitions and descriptions aim to capture and illustrate the complexities of leading and managing in schools. Mulford (2008) termed this phenomenon of the range of definitions as “adjectival leadership” but was critical of these many and varied definitions as they “offer a monocular view of leadership, by taking just one slice of what leaders do and implying that this is the whole of leadership” (p. iii). The advantage though that these definitions or descriptions provide is that they outline the values and beliefs, and actions and strategies that leaders may have and adopt in order to achieve particular outcomes. With this advantage in mind we have presented in this section a range of leadership theories, models, and descriptions that all relate in some way to leading change. As we have already discussed turnaround schools and highlighted that proponents of turnaround school approaches advocate for strong leadership we have included turnaround leadership. Additionally, we have selected transformational leadership, leading learning organizations, authentic leadership, boundary breaking leadership, entrepreneurial leadership, and renaissance leadership, as these all have a central focus on bringing about change, albeit through varied approaches.