The BELMAS editorial team are delighted to introduce Inez Wilson Heenan’s blog ‘What Part can Leadership Play for the Benefit of the Whole-School Community?’
In this blog, the author invites us to reflect on how school leaders can navigate the demands of a global polycrisis while sustaining the daily provision of education. Grounded in a systematic review of international literature, this research-informed blog explores the potential of transformational school leadership (TSL) as employing practices that enable positive change in school culture and staff wellbeing. The blog raises critical questions about the absence of TSL from Irish education policy and highlights the value of revisiting leadership models to ensure they align with the evolving needs of school communities.
It is a timely and thoughtful contribution to current debates on educational leadership and its role in supporting whole-school transformation.
We invite readers to share their thoughts and reflect on similar experiences in their own contexts, continuing the conversation on how leadership can best serve the needs of school communities.
If you have any comments or thoughts about this blog and the points it raises, then do share on social media using the hashtag #BELMASblog or contact the BELMAS Blog editorial team by emailing: blog@belmas.org.uk
School leaders are challenged to tackle the fallout of the global polycrisis and changes in society, prepare school communities for future change, while leading the provision of education for students daily. To explore how school leadership could be supported effectively, I undertook a programme of research. Transformational leadership as identified by Burns ‘raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both the leader and led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both’ (1978, p.20). Examining the international literature over several decades, transformational school leadership (TSL) was evidenced as a successful behavioural style for school leaders changing and transforming educational institutions to meet the demands of all stakeholders (Anderson 2017). Phase one of my research was to undertake a systematic literature review. Very positive findings with a rich dataset regarding the impacts of TSL on school staff and school culture (Wilson Heenan et al. 2023), and the apparent relevance of TSL to the demands for school leadership currently, heightened my curiosity as to its absence from Irish educational policy, where distributed leadership is the recommended model. This lacuna signposted the way for a qualitative research phase to further explore the relevance and potential application of TSL as a leadership practice for Irish primary schools.
A Call for a Leadership Model:
Through school and college visits across Ireland, I carried out interviews with primary school and system leaders to explore their understanding, opinions, lived experiences of TSL, factors affecting its implementation, perceptions of the benefits, limitations, and feasibility of TSL, and if it builds relations with parents and the wider school community. Again, findings were very positive with a high standard of knowledge of TSL expressed, which was mainly informed through post-graduate study of education leadership. TSL was perceived as aspirational – the ‘ideal’, and beneficial to the whole-school community through such as increased motivation and organisational commitment; best practice competencies and strong moral purpose; shared vision and goal-setting; members feeling valued, having confidence, openness to change, role satisfaction and sustainability; empowerment, growth, learning and development by all, inclusion, collaboration and communication, while decreasing stress and isolation. TSL was perceived as feasible with additional administrative support and understood to build relations with all school stakeholders, professional learning communities and networks with other schools. This qualitative phase revealed TSL to be a leadership model of choice for participants, seeking to prioritise school leadership through the creation of a model and process, to counter the current administrative and managerial emphases outlined in Irish educational policy for schools. This model would involve learning and growth with trusted reciprocal relationships, open communication, love and care for the whole-school community.
Transformational and Distributed School Leadership Model:
To support TSL principles and behaviours and facilitate enactment, distributed leadership (DL) practices were recommended, leading to the creation of a synthesised model of ‘Transformational and Distributed School Leadership (TDSL) and a Seven-Step ROADMAP’ (Wilson Heenan et al. 2024a). This is aligned to the most recent Irish government document where leadership policy is referenced; ‘Looking at Our School 2022: A Quality Framework for Primary and Special Schools’(LAOS) (Department of Education 2022), designed for teachers and school leaders implementing effective learning and teaching approaches, quality leadership and management. The TDSL model has six I’s; the principles ‘inclusive culture’ and ‘improved offering’ added to the four I’s introduced by Bernard Bass (1985); i) idealised influence, ii) inspirational motivation, iii) individualised consideration and iv) intellectual stimulation. Five behavioural principles of TSL sit under each of the six I’s, all supported by four leading DL practices (Wilson Heenan et al. 2024b), summarised in this info graph (Figure 1).
Figure 1: TDSL journey and roadmap
Model Application Process:
This model involves a whole-school community taking responsibility for its leadership journey, resulting in a unique gestalt for each school. I argue that an inclusive process of discussion, information-sharing, collaboration, communication, and shared decision-making with the full school staff, board of management, parents’ association, parent body and student council, couching the model in LAOS 2022 will aid successful application. A team could be formed with members from each representative group, officers and deputies appointed, a charter agreed upon, the seven-step ROADMAP commenced and the journey to co-create emerging futures for the whole-school community by the whole-school community begins, aiming to achieve a healthy ecosystem where every voice is valued, and inclusive leadership practices drive continuous growth and well-being, in line with UNESCO’s fourth Sustainable Development Goal; Quality Education.
So What? Now What?
If this TDSL Model and ROADMAP are incorporated into Irish education policy, there is the potential to recognise the widespread practice of transformational distributed school leadership behaviours already being practiced by many excellent Irish school and system leaders, and support those aspiring to improve school leadership, by providing the ‘what’ and the ‘how’.
Anderson, M. (2017) ‘Transformational leadership in education: a review of existing literature’, International Social Science Review, 93, 1–13, available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/90012919
Bass, B.M. (1985) Leadership and performance beyond expectations, London: Collier Macmillan.
Burns, J.M. (1978) Leadership, New York: Harper & Row.
Department of Education (2022) Looking at Our School 2022: A Quality Framework for Primary Schools and Special Schools, Dublin: Department of Education Inspectorate, available: https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/232720/c8357d7a-dd03-416b-83dc-9847b99b025f.pdf#page=null
Wilson Heenan, I.; De Paor, D.; Lafferty, N. and Mannix McNamara, P. (2023) ‘The impact of transformational school leadership on school staff and school culture in primary schools – a systematic review of international literature’, Societies, 13, 133, available: https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13060133
Wilson Heenan, I; Lafferty, N; Mannix McNamara, P. (2024a) ‘An applied approach to transformational leadership for whole-school communities: perspectives of primary school and system leaders’, Societies 14(12), 275, available: https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14120275
Wilson Heenan, I.; Lafferty, N.; Mannix McNamara, P.M. (2024b) ‘Enactment of transformational school leadership – insights from primary school and system leaders’, Education Sciences 14, 557, available: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14060557
