Leaderisation: How leadership thinking changed the way knowledge is produced about schools

The present study poses the issue of ‘leaderisation.’ For two decades, school knowledge production has been framed in terms of leadership inquiry. Research has trended towards ‘leader-centrism,’ and policy has undergone a ‘leaderist’ turn. However, this trend in knowledge has not yet been the target of a dedicated investigation. The present study explores this trend, tracing how leadership inquiry diffused and reproduced across school knowledge. The study’s historical and philosophical approach draws on concepts and methods from Michel Foucault’s history of systems of thought. It conceptualises leaderisation as a leadership ‘thought-system’ reframing school ‘discourse.’ The study accounts for how school discourse and leadership inquiry became a fit, over four steps. Firstly, leadership inquiry was introduced into 1950s school discourse. However, it did not diffuse or reproduce yet, because of its weak affinity for the administrative research favoured at the time. Second, leadership inquiry underwent rethinking in the 1970s, with the realisation that its individualist focus had a weak affinity for organisation-level analysis. It was also recognised that there was a weak synergy between ‘what’ leadership inquiry was researching and ‘how’ it was researching it. Thirdly, leadership inquiry came into its own in the 1970s, with a new thought-system built on a synergy from investigating ‘surveyable leadership’ through ‘leadership surveys.’ Fourth, this new thought-system was imported into 1980s school discourse for two reasons. On the one hand, the synergy between leadership and surveys displaced concerns about how to integrate and build upon knowledge. On the other hand, there was a strong affinity between leadership inquiry and school discourse, as they shared an interest in how leaders articulate a common purpose. From there, leadership inquiry would diffuse by incorporating questions about school systems, students, other countries, and stakeholders. Leadership research would reproduce through theoretical consolidation, and the aggregation of past research in meta-reviews. Overall, the present study argues that leaderisation has stabilised school knowledge production, but left it overly concentrated. This presents an opportunity for scholars to diversify, by pursuing diverging research programmes. The study concludes by indicating directions for further historical and empirical research, as well as for strengthening research design.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Bongers, Adam

• leaderisation
• school leadership
• educational leadership
• leaderism
• knowledge production
• anzsrc-for: 390403 Educational administration, management and leadership
• anzsrc-for: 390202 History and philosophy of education

Statement dc:rights

• embargoed access
• CC BY 4.0

Licence

• http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_f1cf
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31375

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/105466