Reflections on successful school leadership from the international successful school principalship project

Abstract

The 2000s have been described as the golden age of leadership (Leithwood and Day, 2007a, p. 1), yet the topic of leadership remains contentious. Some academics question the concept of leadership itself and the usefulness and relevance of locat-ing leadership in the work of people such as school principals. While acknowledging many of the criticisms, in this chapter we reflect on 14 years of research from the International Successful School Principalship Project,1 and in particular we report on three aspects of this research, two of which are somewhat challenging to current views of school leadership. After describing the project, we discuss the importance of context to successful school lead..