TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN THE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

If you try to find out more about an exceptional school you will probably notice that the schoolhas an exceptional principal. If you take a look at an unsuccessful school you will probably facean ineffective school leadership. It is the conventional wisdom. There is generally accepted standpointthat the leaders of the school are responsible for (non) quality student learning. Is it reallytrue, and, if so, how the school leadership imposes its influence?

In the present times of rapid and non-linear changes in education, many researchers focus onthe question of how school leaders contribute to the sustainable development of schools. Althoughthere is nothing controversial with the idea that the quality of the school functioning depends onthe ways in which they are managed, it is still an open question about which processes of theleadership impact there are at school, which leadership practices are the most efficient. In thatcontext, the paper analyzes direct and indirect effects of transformational leadership in the schoolenvironment. The paper starts with the explanation of the significance of the theory in the field ofthe school leadership. In the central part of the paper, the authors elaborate basic practices oftransformational leadership in the school environment and discuss its similarities and differenceswith instruction (pedagogical) leadership. The final part of the paper provides an overview of themost important empirical studies in this field, which generally support the conclusion that transformationalleadership contributes to a sustained improvement of the pupils’ achievement throughthe development of a set of structural and socio-cultural processes at school.