Retaining Teachers: Intentional Invitational Action and Social Justice Leadership as Driving Forces

Social justice challenges and teacher retention challenges create crises in urban school districts across the United States. Moreover, despite literature linking principal leadership with school ethos known is little as to how the use of an invitational leadership style with a social justice orientation has a connection to the retention of teachers in urban settings. This study used a qualitative case study survey design conducted at two urban school district settings, one in the Western United States and the other in the Midwest. The analysis found a connection between the principal using an invitational leadership style, and the presence of a strong social orientation that helped to retain teachers. These findings present implications for scholars and practitioners.

Are Principals Prepared to Lead in Schools with Diverse Student Populations Using Invitational Leadership?

<p><em>This inquiry sought to create meaning via an invitational leadership lens about how principals are prepared to lead in schools with diverse student populations. Data revealed principals’ perceptions about preparation related to invitational leadership emphasized contradictions between principals’ inviting-oriented rhetoric and their underlying beliefs regarding diverse student populations. Implications include opportunities that principal preparation programs include invitational leadership at the forefront of social justice leadership, as they prepare leaders working with diverse student populations.</em></p>

Challenging the ‘Four Corner Press’ as framework for invitational leadership in South African schools

Orientation: Invitational leadership (IL) is consistent with current leadership trends and, because South African schools are in need of sound leadership, it is necessary to have a framework that can guide principals to act in accordance with the expectations of their educators.Research purpose: This study challenges the internationally accepted ‘Four Corner Press’ of Purkey and Novak (1984) as a framework for IL in the South African school context.Motivation for the study: IL appears to be a comprehensive model for successful school leadership. This necessitated an investigation to determine whether the ‘Four Corner Press’ reflects the expectations of teachers and, if so, whether it could serve as a valuable leadership tool.Research design, approach and method: A questionnaire containing 31 Likert-scale items, underpinned by the principles of IL, was disseminated to 600 educators conveniently drawn from the population of 88 828 teachers in Free State and Eastern Cape schools.Main findings: The data obtained from the survey enabled the researchers to perform a factor analysis, which revealed that South African educators’ expectations of leadership aligned with the ‘Four Corner Press’.Managerial implications: The ‘Four Corner Press’ can be used as a plausible framework for IL in South African schools, which has implications for the development and training of principals.Contribution/value-add: The ‘Four Corner Press’ can be regarded as a reliable prototype of IL expectations within the South African context, which contributes to extending the body of knowledge of education leadership in South Africa.

Invitational Leadership: A Model for the Future

This article explores the desire of the author to find appropriate frameworks and processes for individuals and companies to think strategically and explore models of leadership. He is concerned to use corporate models in developing such strategies in the church context generally and the youth ministry context specifically.