Leadership Learning: Aspiring principals developing the dispositions that count

Abstract

This article outlines a research study into the leadership learning of over 200 aspiring principals, looking specifically at how they learned some of the key concepts and dispositions that underpin effective educational leadership: the disposition to learn; the moral purpose for addressing inequity; cultural responsiveness; the efficacy and agency to lead transformative change; and the multi-faceted role of the principal in effecting change and building capacity for change in self and others. This study took advantage of reflective data collected from the participants about their learning, by looking across these data sets and engaging in the reflective process. The data offered a window into the thinking of the participants, as a vehicle for gaining insights about the ways in which they were changing and growing in relation to the assumptions and intended outcomes outlined in the New Zealand Aspiring Principals' Programme's theory of action. This theory of action was used to identify themes for coding and analysis to inform understanding of these themes, through how they were being understood and enacted by the participants. Once the codes were established, they were used to code the guided self-reflections to validate and refine the codes to ensure that they could be applied to the open-ended responses. The article provides insight into how leaders learn these six educational concepts and provides four key messages about leadership learning.