Australian Christian School Principals' Conceptions of Successful Leadership at Different Promotion Levels

Abstract

In Australia there have been calls to establish a ‘pipeline’ of future school leaders, yet no documented profession-wide criteria exist to support principals in identifying the attributes and qualities of these potential leaders.

As a contribution towards addressing this problem, seven NSW Christian school principals were interviewed about what they look for in a potential leader, particularly at the different levels of school leadership – middle, senior (deputy) and principal; and from where they draw their understanding of leadership talent. Phenomenography was the methodological approach used as it explores the qualitatively different ways of understanding a phenomenon.

The findings highlighted that small school principals, in comparison with large school principals, experience difference in their career journeys, in their understanding of leadership hierarchy and their ideals about leader colleagues.

The interviews also revealed three common leadership qualities described as important to principals when they consider aspiring leaders – vision, growth and protection, although the expectation of attributes and qualities varies according to the level of leadership. The interviews were analysed phenomenographically to identify the variation in how the group of principals understood each of the qualities.

Furthermore, Christian school principals have different sources of understanding about leadership with the two most prominent sources being learning from other Christian school leaders and their own experience.

The variation in principals’ understanding is useful as their collective conceptions of this topic can contribute to the development of future leader identification criteria. Furthermore, the different ways that principals understand potential school leadership could also reveal gaps that may unnecessarily impact an individual principal’s opinion about an aspiring leader (who may overlook a good candidate) and that’s why this research matters.