Leadership practices of principals of high-performing community high schools: Evidence from Nepal

Abstract

Empirical studies of school leadership in South Asia are limited. This qualitative study examines the ways in which principals in three award-winning community high schools enact leadership practices in their specific contexts in Nepal. The results reveal that the principals used multiple frames of leadership and were proactive towards reforms. High levels of interest, collaboration, prohibition of political activities inside the school, approachability for parents, recruitment of high-quality teachers and innovative programmes proved to be critical for success. This study has implications for how principals enact their role to transform low-performing schools into high-performing schools within a short period.

Exploring the Perception of Headmasters’ Transformational Leadership of the Community Secondary Schools in Nepal

“…Furthermore, distributed responsibility may be an attractive tool for organizational commitment and better task performance because it spreads Leadership across the organization and empowers the teachers to develop their leadership capacities [36]. Most of the participants describe their opinion about task performance and organizational commitment from the providing positive feedback, constructive criticism, interpersonal communications, provide the praise in public, show the democratic behaviour, and listen carefully the teacher-staffs.…”

“…Interview protocols were used in HMs, SMC member, and TR. During the interview, the participants were required to reflect on their experiences, how HMs performed in leading the transformation in schools [36]. The interview protocols explore the information related to Transformational Leadership behaviour; the questions of research are listed below.…”

Principal’s Leadership Practices during the COVID 19 Pandemic: An Exploratory Study

“…The study of principals' leadership styles has grown in popularity as a means of improving learning circumstances by focusing on the academic aspects of school climate (Romero & Krichesky, 2018). Recent researches have focused on how principals can improve school performance (Khanal, Perry, & Park, 2020), the impact of culture on their decision-making (Truong, Hallinger, & Sanga, 2017), and their significant role in providing teacher support (Elfers & Stritikus, 2014). The breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic has become a big concern, putting a lot of strain on school principals to keep school operations running.…”

School leadership writ small: Meetings and school principal practice

“…As a microcosm of school leadership, principal meetings suggest school leaders' goals such as reinforcing accountability (Datnow et al, 2019;Duke and Landahl, 2011;Lowenhaupt et al, 2016;Schildkamp and Poortman, 2015;Spillane et al, 2011), orchestrating collaboration and shared vision (Hoppey and McLeskey, 2013;Khanal et al, 2020;Tamir and Ganon-Shilon, 2021;Wolcott, 1973), fostering reflective thinking (Argyris and Schön, 1978;Houchens et al, 2012;Scribner et al, 1999), smoothening administrative performance (Grissom et al, 2015;Gronn, 1983;Martin and Willower, 1981;Wolcott, 1973), and exhibiting authority and power (Friedman and Berkovich, 2020;Gronn, 1984;Sam, 2021).…”