Establishing platforms for leadership and learning

Abstract

Traditional understandings of leadership have focused on individuals who occupied formal positions of authority within organizations; the 'leaders', their personality traits and their work. In business, the focus was on the chief executive officer (CEO). In education, the equivalent was the school principal. Studies of leader­ship within this framework typically examined how the leadership styles of these individuals allowed them to exercise influence and have authority over others. Of particular interest was, 'the heroic leader standing atop a hierarchy, bending the school community to his or her purposes' (Camburn et al., 2003: 348). Such a view of leadership, however, failed to realize its promise. On a practical level, there were simply insufficient numbers of heroes (Copland, 2003; Elmore, 2002; Harris, 2008) or 'want-to-be heroes' (Gronn and Rawlings-Sanaei, 2003) to run all our businesses and schools. On an empirical level, the evidence demonstrated that effective organizations were not typically run by a single leader who controls the activities of others who, in turn, play minor support roles. What happens within any organization is more complex than this. Many people are involved in both formal and informal leadership practice in influencing direction and out­comes. Thus, the vocabulary of 'leadership' replaced that of 'leaders' to reflect this complexity and the relational nature of leadership influence.