Leadership as a aphilosophical concept

Leadership as a Philosophical Concept

In these distinctions, intentionally or otherwise, leadership often comes over as having a more positive quality, particularly in books about leadership. Management can appear routine, mundane, concerned with systems and processes. Leadership is often presented as exciting, inspirational. ‘Leadership’, with its overtones of vision and strategy, carries a greater charge than the more prosaic ‘management’. An unspoken thread of argument asks rhetorically ‘who would want to be a manager when she or he could be a leader?’ However this apparently clear distinction is often harder to make in the world of professional practice. There, those appointed to specific paid positions within the bureaucratic hierarchical model of the institution are often expected both to lead and to manage. In leading, they are often required to manage. Day et al (Day, Sammons et al. 2010)use the ‘m’ word frequently in their study of leadership. The influential report by Scottish Inspectors on best practice in leadership for learning (HMIE 2007b) makes this overlap clear:

Management tends to be equated with an operational focus and a concern with meeting targets whereas leadership tends to be equated with vision and direction-setting. However, there is a danger of over-simplification and of downplaying the importance of management and management practices. It is crucial to have effective management systems in place so that establishments/services run smoothly and are well served by transparent budget and resource allocations and staffing structures. Both are required. It is also important to recognise those aspects of management which differ across sectors. For example, [in Scotland] schools must work with their education authority in relation to issues such as staffing and devolved funding. Colleges on the other hand, are independent institutions who have control over finance and resources. This gives college principals much more control and scope to make changes than their counterparts in the school or CLD sectors. Leaders in independent residential special schools and secure care accommodation services must liaise with their placing authorities to agree the appropriateness of their curriculum and their strategies to meet the complex needs of young people. (p47)

This is a more complex position than the previous Scottish Inspectors’ report on leadership, in which Inspectors criticised school leaders who ‘over-emphasize the day-to-day administrative functions of their roles rather than giving sufficient attention to the key aspects of providing more strategic leadership’ ((HMIE 2001), p4-5). Evolution in the use of concepts and language has made some confusion or looseness in the use of these terms more likely. Gunter (2001) shows how the language of policy and practice in education in England moved from talking about ‘administration’ to ‘management’ to ‘leadership’ over a forty year period. Ozga, also from a critical perspective, is suspicious of these changes in terminology. She sees the term ‘leadership’ as an empty concept which has been used to manipulate eager and enthusiastic compliance with a managerialist agenda. In a technicist world, ‘the words that we are left are hollowed out, drained of meaning, or mean the opposite of what they claim to mean (for example, quality, excellence, and, indeed, leadership—which is now associatedwith energetic followership of government policies).’ ((Ozga 2000) p356)

While there may be confusion in general usage of these terms, and considerable overlap in the activities ascribed by different authors to leadership or management, there is clearly some difference at root. Efficient managers may not be good leaders. Those with sterling leadership qualities, but limited management skills may march the troops to the top of the hill, but not have the right supplies to keep them there. For many involved in educational leadership, a complementary relationship between leadership and management, loosely defined and different in scope, is required: one does not work without the other. This was certainly the view of the headteachers who were studied by Day et al ((Day 2000), who identified tensions between the leadership and management demands of their job but saw both as essential. Leadership, said one memorably was about ‘setting the course’, management about ‘running the ship’. (p135)

Leadership, power and influence

Gunter, building on the work of Ball (Ball 1994) ensures that her readers are aware of the relationships of power and influence in knowledge production, in the development of concepts. Discourse analysis makes visible the relationships of power and authority which underpin claims to knowledge, the power to give meaning (Gunter 2001, pp8-16). She reflects critically on the concepts of leadership used within the academic world, the political world of public policy in education and the world of professional leadership practice in school communities. For Gunter,

..there is preferred model of leadership in education that permeates policy texts.. and is currently labelled ‘transformational’ leadership. This model presents leadership as being a leader through appointment to a post within an organisational structure, and prescribes what that leader does by abstracting tasks and behaviours. It exaggerates agency in ways that objectify, and hence, undermine, professional relationships between headteachers, and teachers, and their students... (Gunter 2001 p14-15).

Her critique is complemented by an argument in favour of a different conceptualisation in which ‘educational professionals are users and produces of leadership knowledge.’ (p15) For Gunter, leadership is not a job but is attributed to others by those within an organisation. Leadership power is granted by those who follow, it is a relationship, not a characteristic of a particular role.

You should think about this idea in relation to the notion of 'middle leaders' and consider how discourses inform and influence how we think, know and understand concepts such as leadership.