3: Key Leadership Practices

Educational leadership is a dynamic process whereby influence is imparted to a group to lead that group towards a common goal. Further, leadership can be viewed as a non-linear interactive process, which creates opportunities for it to be shared collectively in a group (NASSP, 2013). Leithwood (2017) describes this as distributed leadership, which in a complex organisation such as a school – a system unto itself – provides opportunities to respond to emergent and sometimes unpredictable challenges while enhancing collective learning and staff development. It is important for educational leaders to lead with a values perspective, build a vision, and have the capacity to nurture environments with high levels of trust (Leithwood et al., 2019).