Green School Leadership

The purpose of the chapter was to examine the leadership practices of school principals whose agenda is to green the schools in an effort to achieve sustainability in Namibia and build environmental knowledge of the Namibian secondary school learners. The study was qualitative and used a purposive sampling of eight teachers and environmental clubs at three selected schools in the Khomas education region. The results revealed that these teachers hold a non-remunerative position of coordinating for the Environmental Club as an extra-mural responsibility and they were doing it because of their natural love for the environment and interest in educating the young and future generations about sustainability/sustainable living. The chapter recommends that the school management should provide maximum support to the practicing and responsible green school project coordinators at various schools to motivate and guide them when necessary.

Predictive Model of the Influence of Leadership Styles on Attitudes Towards Organizational Change Among Secondary School Teachers in Selangor

The chapter aimed to examine the relationship of leadership styles and attitude towards organizational change among 360 secondary school teachers in Selangor. Statistical analysis techniques, namely, mean and standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation, and multiple regression analysis, were used. Findings indicated that although teachers perceived the leadership styles of their principals were only at the moderate level, teachers showed a high level of positive attitude towards organizational change. There were positive relationships between principals' leadership styles and teachers' attitudes towards organizational change. The results also revealed that 11.8% of the variance of attitude towards organizational change is explained by transformational leadership style. Hence, transformational leadership style has an influence on the teachers' attitudes towards organizational change. The practical implications of these findings were discussed to provide insights for the improvement on leadership practices towards organizational change in the secondary schools in Malaysia.

“Getting Bruised, Hurting, and Dirty” in School Leadership

Two themes, 1) administrative managerialism and 2) human kinship, are used to theorize an effective approach to educational leadership. The first arises from difficulty in Canada recruiting teachers into school administration. The second emphasizes human kinship, where we speak out of our materiality as an earthling. These themes suggest a leadership profile grounded in valuable experience gained in the practice of teaching. The intent of this chapter is to theorize an approach to leadership that emphasizes a sense of calling toward the public good, where school leaders can engage in the action that nurtures a culture encouraging teachers to be responsibly accountable and students to engage in assiduous study. “Careerists” rarely take time to understand the complexities of a symbolic/cultural approach and the author's claim is that we need to select leaders who understand how to infuse the work of teaching with value, meaning, passion, and purpose.

Managing Risk in School Crisis Intervention

This chapter reports findings from a study of school leader perspectives on crisis preparedness. The context for the study is a sample of school superintendents in the southwest region of the United States. Interviews were conducted with four school superintendents to gather insights into mainly organizational norms, policy, and planning related to crisis preparation. This chapter seeks to add insight into what leaders perceive as preparation for potential crises and to critically assess the demands and obligations set forth through state legislative policy. Furthermore, the authors explore myriad leadership challenges to maintaining public confidence and maximizing the safety of children. Recommendations for leaders to engage in reframing of their positionality with respect to crises and a model for engaging parents and community in assessing risks and threats are offered.

Predictive Leadership Style of Private Secondary School Principals in Nigeria

This research is a qualitative study of two private secondary schools in Nigeria. Data was collected from eight (8) participants through in-depth interview (IDI). Observation was employed to triangulate and validate the leadership style claims of both principals and teachers as few researches have dwelled on such. Findings revealed that a situated involvement of teachers in responsibilities motivate them to do their most excellence to achieve result through initiating change in schools' organizations as well as others referred to as transformational leadership.

Embracing Successful ICT Integration Through MIC Transformational Model

The current worldwide ICT and digital transformation requires new leadership to demonstrate knowledge and skills suitable for the digital age. As ICT development advances, school leaders should maximize ICT usage in classrooms. This chapter highlights exemplary leadership practices by a Malaysian primary school leader. The objectives of the research are (1) to document leadership styles in managing teachers to successfully integrate ICT in their classrooms and (2) to investigate leadership strategies for successful ICT integration. A case study approach involving a semi-structured interview, observations, and documentary analysis were used. The data revealed that the leader pursued an innovative approach to instill technological transformation. Teachers acquired appropriate ICT skills essential to perform their tasks. The study reveals that successful ICT integration was achieved through the application of Maintain ➧Improve ➧ Change (MIC) as part of transformational model practices based on the vision of the Ministry of Education and other strategies discussed in the chapter.

Effective Leadership Style for Indigenous Schools in the Malaysian Context

This study focuses on the indigenous peoples of Malaysia who are collectively categorized as the orang asli (indigenous people) in Malaysia. This group was selected as they face many challenges in the field of education which is often linked to poverty, incompatible teaching-learning methods, lack of facilities, and school leadership. The study investigates the role of school administrators, teachers, parents, and pupils in five selected schools in Malaysia. Five school headmasters, two administrative officials, 10 teachers, 10 parents, and 10 students took part in this qualitative study. Interviews on school leadership were explored in terms of challenges and good practices which leads to the development of a model that incorporates the findings from the study. It is hoped that the model which emphasizes sociocultural sensitivity, the need to draw on the knowledge and the skills of the orang asli for educational development, and reaching out to them will be helpful to indigenous peoples in Malaysia and other countries.

A Multilevel Analysis on the Contribution of Principal's Educational Leadership Skills on Student Achievement

In this study, the effect of school leadership on student achievement is examined based on the PISA 2015 data in the Turkish context, conducting a multilevel analysis. According to the results of the study, gender, economic, social, cultural status of the family, and grade repetition, school type, and the interaction of school type and grade repetition are directly associated with the students' science achievement, whereas leadership skills of school principals are not related. Several reasons for such an insignificant relationship between leadership skills and student achievement are discussed. The effect of culture on leadership orientations of different countries constitute the center of this discussion. In this regard, for Turkey and countries alike, where the self-protective leadership orientation is highly valued, instructional and professional development leadership skills of principals are recommended, considering schools are the professional learning communities to increase the contribution of principals' leadership skills on student outcomes.

Conceptualizing a Leadership Style for Promoting the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics in Rural Secondary Schools

Mathematics teachers serve as instructional leaders in their classrooms to ensure effective teaching and learning of mathematics. This chapter chronicles the conceptualization of a leadership style that promote the teaching and learning of mathematics in rural secondary schools. In this chapter, a prediction of a leadership style that can transform underachieving rural secondary schools for the promotion of teaching and learning of mathematics is presented. In addition, the interaction between transformational and instructional leadership effects in the mathematics classroom are discussed. The chapter defines leadership in mathematics teaching, discusses leadership for the mathematics classroom, presents how leadership was introduced in South African schools, followed by Mathematics instructions and leadership, and principal's perceptions on school leadership and its links to or effects on mathematics performance. Finally, the chapter suggests applied transformational leadership as a proposed tested model that has yielded a good performance in rural mathematics classrooms.

Leadership Style and School Culture as Perceived by Teachers in Malaysian Northern State Schools

This chapter explores the effective leadership style for positive school culture as perceived by some Malaysian Northern State school teachers. This chapter uses focus group and open-ended questions to have in-depth understanding and testing of the participants' ability of suggesting or predicting the best or most effective school leadership style for building school positive culture for best leadership practices. The participants were teachers from different schools in Northern States Malaysia undertaking master program in educational management at Universiti Utara Malaysia. The findings revealed that transformational leadership style was rated, predicted, and ranked as the best leadership style for school principals to apply in building positive school culture according to their context while distributed leadership and instructional leadership could be also considered as the second leadership styles for building positive school culture in the Northern schools of Malaysia.