Leadership as an Organizational Quality

Abstract

In this article, leadership is conceptualized as an organizational quality. Adopting a perspective on organizations offered by institutional theory, the authors offer a view of leadership that builds on the following points: Leadership flows through the networks of roles that comprise organizations. The medium of leadership and the currency of leadership lie in the personal resources of people. And, leadership shapes the systems that produce patterns of interaction and the meanings that other participants attach to organizational events.

Parallel leadership: a clue to the contents of the “black box” of school reform

“…whole-school); 3. a vibrant professional learning community is in evidence; 4. leadership functions and responsibilities are distributed, with teachers exercising pedagogical leadership and principals exercising strategic leadership. Cuttance's (2001) conclusion is consistent with the view that the total amount of leadership found in schools correlates positively with school performance (Pounder et al, 1995;Ogawa and Bossert, 1995). However, as Hallinger and Heck (1996) have pointed out, the dynamics of processes that underpin the correlation in question have remained obscured from the view of researchers.…”

A Quantitative Study of the Relationship between Distributed Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Perceptions of Turkish Primary School Teachers

“…Recent years, however, have witnessed a shift in leadership paradigms from single-person or heroic leadership which places the responsibility of leading school processes only the accounts of school principals (Gronn, 2000;Harris, 2004;Harris and Lambert, 2003;Harris and Spillane, 2008;Spillane, 2005) and which restricts leadership to one person (Harris et al, 2007) to a distributed, dispersed or shared leadership approach (Gronn, 2000(Gronn, , 2009a(Gronn, , 2009bHarris, 2004;Harris and Spillane, 2008;Spillane, 2005;Spillane et al, 2003). Recent leadership approaches suggest that leadership is an organizational process (Ogawa and Bossert, 2000) and that each member of the organization should have the right and the responsibility to skillfully participate in school leadership practices (Harris and Lambert, 2003). However, research on the relationship between OCB and distributed or shared leadership remains extremely thin (Jofreh et al, 2012).…”

Using social network methods to study school leadership

“…First, scholars of leadership and management have recognized for several decades that an exclusive focus on positional leaders fails to capture these phenomena in organizations (Barnard 1938;Cyert and March 1963;Katz and Kahn 1966). Though in no way undermining the role of the school principal, this recognition argues for thinking about leadership as something that potentially extends beyond those with formally designated leadership and management positions (Heller & Firestone, 1995;Ogawa & Bossert, 1995;Pitner, 1988;. Recent empirical work underscores the need for moving beyond an exclusive focus on formally designated leaders in studies of school leadership to identifying others who take responsibility for this work (Camburn, Rowan, & Taylor, 2003;Spillane, Camburn, & Pareja, 2007).…”