System leadership and school leadership

Abstract

This article describes research on system and school leadership from three perspectives. At the system level, leadership was evident at the senior levels of the central and regional systems, with principal network leaders having potential to exercise occasional leadership. Principals tended not to operate as system leaders because they had limited influence across multiple schools. At a regional level, it was clear that directors acted as system level leaders, exerting wide influence on clusters of schools to improve. At a school level, the work of the principal, other school leaders, and critical friends was more important to the improvement journey of the school than system leadership. It seems that whilst system leadership can be important, it needs to work in conjunction with school leadership to maximize influence on school success.