Instructional Principalship: A Shared Leadership for Learning Framework to Improve Administrative Academic Scholarship in Comprehensive Schools ()
1. Introduction
The School Principal desires to innovate the cultural setting and to create a more cohesive and collaborative community that initiates decisions across shared responsibilities. School leadership coordinates intervention actions that improve instruction, learning, and inquiry by improving key classroom practices and academic cultural conditions (Leithwood et al., 2019). The lead Principal take action to engage in broader relationship development and cultural understanding as a part of their administrative duties. Innovative cultural principals (and other school administrators) apply academic and social practices that support the equitable needs of the entire school culture in various campus settings and instructional environments (Christie, 2010). Based on my own educational experience in both the academic classroom setting and the current administrative practice, I believe that your school culture is only as good as the leadership team responsible for its development. Whitaker (2018) argues that among school leaders, we must place value on collaboration, learning from experiences, practices, research, and love of learning as the best method to build social structures within the organization that not only allow for support but also promote engagement for purposes over just task management. The effective management of educational institutions’ health depends on the quality of institutional administrators, leadership development, qualifications, academic experiences, professional education, personality, and visible exposure (Akpan, 2016). School principals must not only meet the heavy demands of the job but also articulate and model professional instructional standards to promote a school culture that meets the academic needs of all students. Instructional leaders must influence others to pair appropriate curriculum practices with their best knowledge of the subject matter (Quinn, 2002). This is ideal; however, what is the negative impact on educators and students when the school administration fails to meet their specific leadership demands or does not practice the administrative skills needed for effective intervention with the highest-needs students on campus? Consider the following vignette.
Miguel was seated outside the gymnasium during the first period, eating his breakfast and talking to a few students who were on their way to their morning classes. This is typical of Miguel’s behavior every morning. He is a nice and polite student, but he often walks on campus during school days and rarely spends time attending his classes. Miguel wants to be a carpenter and even has a few connections in the local trades. Miguel however has experienced a lot of psychological traumas. As a result of these experiences and other factors, he displayed little desire to work toward graduation. Sadly, Miguel required only 25 more credits to meet minimum graduation requirements. However, as it stands now, Miguel is not going to graduate, and most teachers and school administrators have given up trying to keep him in their classroom. “That one is a lost cause.” I overheard of one administrator. “We tried everything, and we still cannot get him to attend his classes, he has to want to graduate.”
Comments from teachers and school leaders regarding Miguel as a student on campus encouraged me to reflect on my role as school leader. My search for answers regarding the indifferent attitudes of various educators on campus toward Miguel initiated more questions about our professional practices than about immediate solutions. School administrators are often apathetic toward their own limitations as educators. The lack of personal accountability and professional ownership of school failures by school leadership has a significant negative impact on students’ success, motivation, feelings, and views of the current school culture (Bukhari et al., 2021). Educators need to identify student care. Students like Miguel often lack care because of trauma or other impactful forces, such as special education placements and attached negative stigmas, which continue to regress the student’s desire and need to succeed. Although most students with these types of academic needs and limits receive a significant amount of instruction in general education classrooms, education practices continue to lack the most effective interventions needed, there is little academic research to guide school teaching practice, administrative preparation, and teacher proper professional development (Mckenna & Jeske 2019). School officials do not always comprehend the true problems related to student motivation. It is therefore necessary to answer these questions. As school leaders, we are trained to know the standards and practices required to make the necessary structural instructional improvements, but much less about how school leadership practitioners can implement these innovative academic interventions in daily practice (Spillane, 2003). However, there is often a disconnection between meeting these needs for more challenging student populations; principals need to make collaborative connections with school faculty, who can collectively assist them in retaining the skill set needed to meet these challenges.
In a collaborative culture, leading is a practice of possibility that makes it possible not to deny education and the occupants its critical, generative, and transformative potential (Edwards-Groves et al., 2020). Without these collaborative efforts, school leadership teams will continue to struggle to develop appropriate instructional and social-emotional interventions to meet specific student populations most challenging needs. Often, this is because school leadership professionals lack the knowledge and experience to best meet higher-needs students, driven to crisis. Davids and Waghid (2018) many principals do not have instructional/curriculum skills to promote climates to develop inclusive participation, deliberation on shared leadership practice effectiveness, or the establishment of clear professional development objectives and methods of creation. After years of administration, the concept of taking on the extended role of a student learner might seem a daunting task. This area needs to change as the demands of students continue to evolve after the COVID-19. As the head of the school and the lead administrator, the principal must be motivated and responsible for measuring student learning expectations. As leaders of their instructional professionals, Bukhari et al. (2021) defend the belief, the lead principal, encourages innovative teaching in schools. I measured my own effectiveness as a school leader by having the ability to converse with students regarding their needs and limitations. These interventions and personal connections go a long way to achieving successful outcomes. My additional role as a school leader is to connect with other school faculties and support staff to address similar student issues related to social-emotional and academic needs, allowing the school leader to develop the knowledge and empathy needed as lead support for these invention practices. The challenges presented in reaching high-risk and needs students (Miguel) are not always encountered in scholastic journals or course leadership textbooks. It needs to be established by engaging in reflection, conversations, collaboration, accountability, and most importantly, being visible and present.
As Educational Leadership Practitioners, we need to value the literature, evaluate practices, and adjust how we envision ourselves as visible and active school leaders, according to the needs of all students and teachers. The establishment of new pedagogical applications encourages shared leadership in specific areas of the school administration, thereby creating evolutionary collaborative practices. The results of shared leadership allow for a more holistic school culture to nurture effective professional development and research to meet the diverse needs of all stakeholders. Seeking school leaders who are more engaged in daily curriculum development methods and classroom instructional practices that use research-based methods to improve overall school culture. Recent leadership studies provide a wealth of data on the heavy burden of school leadership and the current need for Distributed Leadership Practices (DLP). However, there is a lack of literature on the benefits of Distributed Leadership Practices in supporting the role of the principal, who takes on a larger presence as the instructional lead practitioner. This article will navigate past studies and drive a need not just for school leadership visibility and academic accountability toward development methods, but also argue the continued research needs in this area. It will also demonstrate how the principal, as the cultural figurehead of the school, is responsible for the social-emotional and academic professional well-being of their faculty and student populations in a continuous drive for higher level engagement and educational benefit. These educational benefits establish how a holistic and humanistic approach to practice not only supports higher learning, but also fosters the continuous use of research methods, constantly developing the essence of educational practices.
2. Literature Review
There continues to be little recent literature on methodology practices regarding school leadership, taking on an extended role as lead instructional practitioners in comprehensive school settings. As the leader of academic intervention efforts, the principal attempts to establish the recommendations needed to improve and coordinate curriculum improvements, promote teacher professional practice enrichment, and ensure systemic accountability (Goldring & Tale, 2019). Recent research has discussed how principals overextend their daily activities. Regarding current instructional materials and the application of better teacher practices, many school leadership practitioners have become sideline observers, leaving most curriculum work and professional development workshops to district outsourcing and their current instructional team. Historically, many school administrators have relied on external educational vendors (textbooks and program publishers) to support short-term professional development workshops and training for teachers’ academic initiatives (Darling-Hammond & Darling-Hammond 2017). This disconnection between classroom instructional methods and professional development practices often causes school leaders to be unequipped to support teachers’ and students’ needs. The main competency of instructional leadership must be emphasized on the level of support that affirms a teacher commitment to the scholastic professional development cycle, building teacher capacity to make learning more enriching and meaningful (Zahn et al., 2023). Simply stated, professional development must be enriched in academic practice, along with purposeful and accountable events. Shared involvement in operational practices and development is key. Action-based instructional practice comprehension develops when planning multiple pathways to involve teachers and staff in pedagogic decision approaches, taking on additional ownership of the school vision for scholastic improvement and a methodology to facilitate improved student learning (Blase & Blase, 2002; Heck et al., 1990). Teachers generally fail to optimize the benefits of innovation and engagement in instructional practices when instructional directives and interventions originate from outside the school and are not developed internally as collaborative events (Darling-Hammond & Darling-Hammond, 2017). The creation of practices to support principal-centered instructional leadership requires the coordinated and creative work of other professional educators, including teachers, assistant principals, and instructional specialists, rendering its efficacious enactment shared (Zahn et al., 2023). This collaborative opportunity to promote higher equity and the inclusion of instructional pedagogies in staff development methods serves as a learning experience for all stakeholders. High-need students work and learn better in an inclusive, supportive teaching environment with respect to interactive classroom communities and an appreciation of the value of different backgrounds, opinions, and social cultures on campus (Scudamore, 2013).
School leaders, who ignore these trends, continue to disservice their teachers and students. Leaders who are not visible lack security and confidence in their operational practices and fail to meet the needs of their faculty and students. Concurrently, faculty members who perceive school leadership to be collaborative, visible, and engaging feel safe and valued as professional educational practitioners. Teachers who develop this positive school leadership framework are more likely to contribute to decision-making and embrace opportunities to contribute to the school’s shared leadership (Austin & Harkins, 2008). To avoid a broken educational climate and maintain the effective methods needed, school leadership needs to gain higher visibility and interaction across school campuses to improve the instructional culture. Visibility, engagement and further evolved equity inclusive practices meet greater levels of empathy to “at risk” student populations. This type of academic and social accommodation needs to become a priority for school administrators, as external forces continually impact students’ academic and emotional well-being. Netolicky (2019) defended school leadership as seeking teachers who desire a higher commitment to learning development and other leadership practices to support an abundance of research-based and contradictory findings, thereby allowing time to share views, ideas, and conceptual methodologies. School leaders with the ability to influence, motivate, and train their staff to achieve school instructional goals benefit their employees’ well-being. It encourages and empowers employees to contribute from their strengths to the development of communities within the organization (Bukhari et al., 2021). Visibility as a school leader is a key aspect in motivating instructional employees to promote and engage as shared practitioners in a more culturally sustainable reality for their campus. The most significant motivation factor for school faculty is the perception and importance of visible leadership in establishing a positive school culture built on trust (Devos et al., 2014). The lead principal serves as the school cultural figurehead; they must continually maintain visibility and provide advanced guidance, counseling, and overall support for the many needs of their faculty and students to enable a highly energized school climate (Morris et al., 2020). Trust is an essential component of these goals. Visible-engaging instructional leadership establishes a school culture with high-level academic intervention programs that drive changes in faculty teaching practices. The perception of what shapes transitional leadership has been identified by instructional staff who share the importance of visible leadership in establishing a positive school culture built on trust (Devos et al., 2014).
Whitaker (2018) envisioned this type of higher-tiered structural change as Cultural Change. This level of cultural transformation creates a foundational basis for moving from past operational practices and procedures to a new pedagogical ideology. This metamorphosis is a systemic action that requires the collective action of all stakeholders to become a reality. The school principal is the central figure in this change. Principals often operate out of ambiguous beliefs when it comes to their own ability to guide or direct instruction, which often leads them into a self-doubting belief system about their roles as lead signets toward an enlightened school culture. Few studies have explicitly examined how school leaders perceive their own leadership styles and talents toward strategic academic development in their schools (Netolicky, 2019). The principal must possess charisma to convince other leaders and teachers of the need to change the school’s culture and learning approach. Leadership that can be shown to support the means to their vision, collects support by investing themselves in the action is one of the key factors that can increase teacher effectiveness and cultural buy-in (Safrida et al., 2023). Replacing stale and atavistic instructional practices in classrooms. Refuting educators who refuse to make proper adjustments to meet our evolving students’ social-emotional and academic needs. We must show them in another way: we are the change agents needed to build collective agreements and ownership. Cultural change can be a formidable task, but with the right type of lead practitioner, a positive practical transformation is possible (Bukhari et al., 2021). Shared leadership advocates working collectively across faculty teams to build methods and protocols for cultural changes in daily instructional practice. If teachers feel respected and heard by the administration and continue to embrace their school’s broader educational mission, they may be better able to sustain their morale when working in a struggling school or district (Erichsen & Reynolds, 2020). School principals must be seen as instructional leaders who provide experience and expertise to support their teachers’ learning processes (Baker et al., 2020). School leadership is responsible for providing guidance and support to teachers and staff. We fail as school officials when we see our involvement as sedentary over the actual necessity to encourage innovation and value to our instructional staff.
2.1. The Benefit of Distributed Leadership Practices
Collective leadership involves a shared venture to sustain cultural outcomes. It serves as a collective partnership between the school leadership and members of the school faculty who are willing to develop further as administrative instructional leaders. This practice of collected or shared leadership is often referred to in higher academic circles as Distributed Leadership Practice (DLP). A Distributed Leadership Practice is the sharing of selected leadership tasks and responsibilities across a selective team of peers who seek to support the leadership, becoming more freely included in needed relationship practices. Distributed Leadership supports decreasing the overwhelming burden currently placed on school leaders, while simultaneously allowing teachers and support staff to develop a collective voice and presence in daily school operations outside the narrowness of their individual classrooms (Court, 2003). Building on daily operational practices, Distributed Leadership helps promote greater teacher engagement, motivation, investment, and support. Distributed Leadership Practices can be built across a school campus with a greater ability to establish higher levels of respect, trust, communication, and collaboration. The extended role of educators in school culture, establishing the empowerment of teachers into shared leadership responsibilities, can lead to increased job performance and engagement, fostering overall salinification and school commitment (Rinehart et al., 1994). Teachers’ shared leadership as a daily practice serves as a goal for faculties who often show enthusiasm and commitment to higher professional growth results accomplished through the vision and strategic values of the school (Trybus, 2019). Distributed Leadership Practices can also help facilitate and promote the development of shared instructional-based research methods that meet the inclusive needs of all learners. The distributed sharing of leadership practices promotes visual engagement from all stakeholders during professional development cycles, the sharing of practical educational experience in discussion, and prompting the establishment of a school-based instructional team. These exercises work to expand diverse curricula and innovation strategies to meet the needs of the entire student population. Akyurek et al., (2024) build on this concept of collaboration as not just a practice but as a culture, where the educational organization demands the participation of the collective instructional environment within the school faculty to continuously drive and support instructional activities. These events call upon school leadership to reevaluate their organizational structure and make the disbursement of responsibilities critical to progress moving forward.
Distributed leadership practices should be distributed across several individuals because principals can no longer meet all the demands of daily school functioning (Hulpia et al., 2009). In the traditional school hierarchy, within our current leadership practices, school leadership governance is expected to remain in the principal office, and this disruption of school leadership dynamics can become a barrier to successful shared leadership (Mayrowetz et al., 2007). We sought to change the traditional branded approach to educational systems by creating an allowance for a shared view of school culture. Shared leadership is not a new concept; it has begun to receive more peer-reviewed attention in the last 20 years as the continued dynamics of school administrative duties have evolved and changed. Berntson et al., (2012) argue a school principal’s workload is recognized in recent literature as often impossible to self-navigate, with an imbalance between state and district mandates and often reduced stretched-out capital and resources. A combination of school stakeholder positions on campus is believed to be an effective means of eliminating some of this burden (Spillane, 2003). Furthermore, the idea that Distributed Leadership is an effective management system across the school setting is an essential component of many successful private- and public-sector organizations (Crispeels & Harris, 2004). Essentially, when we support distributed practices, we are building a more cohesive school culture that not only promotes teachers’ social-emotional well-being, but also drives student engagement. Evidence from recent academic research indicates that student engagement contributes to learning acquisition, academic success, and self-esteem toward their future (Fredricks et al., 2004). The combination of leadership and teacher-shared practices bridges school leadership and teachers to continue working together to enhance their instruction, inquiry, and professional development. Instructional support uses the way teachers develop and implement strategies to support student engagement and inquiry (Hafen et al., 2015). Effective professional development is defined as “structured professional learning that results in the advancement of teacher knowledge pedagogies and professional practices, driving improvements in student learning outcomes” (Darling-Hammond & Darling-Hammond, 2017). A DLP seeks to promote leadership engagement in practice, which establishes Leadership for Learning Framework that seeks to create holistic learning pedagogical thinking across multiple areas within the school climate.
2.2. Shared Leadership for Learning Framework
The purpose of humanistic education as returning educational practices is to provide a foundation for personal growth and development across all stakeholders (Frostenson & Englund, 2020). This holistic approach centers on a love of learning and inquiry that guides us as active learners in the rest of our lives. The goal was to promote highly developed instructional practices that supported a holistic approach to shared leadership and learning methods. From the perspective of Shared Leadership for Learning (SLL), a leadership activity is viewed as a joint activity based on team dynamics and ends with the idea that principals can provide the basis for change (Moral et al., 2019). Hallinger et al. (2015) constructed the term “leadership for learning” from the concepts of instructional and transformational leadership and two styles of leadership with two distinct approaches. This concept of both shared and transformational aspects of school leadership and development is essential for building advanced leadership that seeks to create an academic leadership practitioner. Schools continue to face more challenges and student learning requires increased intervention. Shared Leadership (SL) and continued collaborative development methods must be explored to promote equity. Bukhari et al., (2021) defined leadership as the ability to influence, motivate, and train followers to achieve goals and do something for the benefit of employees. It encourages empowered employees to contribute from their strengths to the development of communities within the organization (Bukhari et al., 2021). In a collaborative, sustaining school culture, leading is a practice of fostering engagement and possibility. Commitment to cultural change makes it possible to shape the minds of both stakeholders, as student agents of transformative potential (Edwards-Groves et al., 2020).
The development of Shared Leadership for Learning (SLL) is an extension of the Distributed Leadership Practices; however, it is more focused on the specific duties related to support that school leaders focus on the principal (and other school leaders) role in the coordination, development, and implementation of inclusive and diverse instructional programs (Hallinger, 2003). School culture adopts leadership for learning leading as a continued practice that attends to what leaders say and do by bridging with others willing to share in leadership capacities how instructional leading is done, offering from experience multiple distinctive ways of relating opportunities to lead (Edwards-Groves et al., 2020). This is the essence of the symbiotic relationship between school instructions and leadership. The instructional team engages in a larger scope of school practices and operations, enriching them. Simultaneously, school leadership is allowed to delegate some of its heavy operational duties to become more visible in classroom observations and walkthroughs, as well as collaborating with various instructional teams across many diverse disciplines. Learning becomes both a shared learning and teachable event for both instructional teachers and school administrators. Shared Leadership for Learning emphasizes the collaborative undertaking of principals and teachers to improve the curriculum, instruction, and assessment (Hallinger, 2015). The actions established behind Shared Leadership for Learning are of great importance as the methods of instruction delivered to students continue to evolve and change as we move from teacher-centered to student-centered instructional methods. Despite the high delegation of other duties, the demand for school leaders has never been more in need, as leadership must stay engaged in current classroom instructional trends and understand the classroom dynamics of current teaching. A common shift in instruction that principals encounter during observational cycles is that the practice shifts from instruction-based direct learning to a more constructivist student-centered system of learning and the challenges of practice from those parameters (Quinn, 2002). School leaders must work in collective transformational methods with SLL to collaboratively build practices that push teachers and students to reach a higher zenith of personal inquiry and constructivist cooperation.
Bukhari et al., (2021) defined leadership as the ability to influence, motivate, and train followers to achieve goals and do something for the benefit of employees. It encourages empowered employees to contribute from their strengths to the development of communities within the organization (Bukhari et al., 2021). In a collaborative sustaining school culture, leading is a practice of fostering engagement and possibility; commitment to cultural change makes it possible to shaping the minds of both stakeholders as student agents to transformative potential (Edwards-Groves et al., 2020). Transformational exchange requires commitment to communication and mutual benefits. This can present a challenge based on the separation of roles that school leadership and instruction often drift apart in operational practice. In the traditional school hierarchy within our current leadership practices, school leadership governing is expected to stay in the principal office, and this disruption of school leadership dynamics can become a barrier to successful shared leadership distribution (Mayrowetz et al., 2007). The continued hope from this writing and continued educational practice is to argue for leadership and instructional teams to make greater efforts to mesh cohesively. Current educational trends, such as inclusion, equity, and culturally responsive teaching practices, have become more standardized in the compressive educational setting, while on the flip side, political opposition to texts that regard the LBGT community inflame factors of the school community. All stakeholders desire to understand and voice their delegation and regulation of these issues (Nordquist, 2020). It is believed that Shared Leadership for Learning frameworks allows a collaborative equity bridge to better meet these needs as a collective over the burden on one school leader. The principal places the school in the right direction and allows distributive natural learning to seek a common goal for community enrichment (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006). Direction might be subjective to the direct school leader, district, or community places in the expectations of the campus and culture, but even the least pragmatic school environments must see the benefits and need for the Shared Leadership for Learning as a viable administrative action.
2.3. Pragmatics of SLL on “The Essence of Education”
School leadership has a collective responsibility for the greater good of society, and part of that duty is the beneficial growth of teachers and students defined within the institution that services the local community (Marzano, 2005). This commitment to serve the greater good is achieved by seeking instructional methods that seek to build engagement and enrichment for all stakeholders. In the sake of this essay, we can call engagement a feeling of personal connection in both academic and social settings within school culture and climate. We then refer to the enrichment in the growth or change agent that results from the original enriched feeling of connection to an act or purpose. Once these terms have been established, they relate to Shared Leadership for Learning as a cultural practice. We can then seek out the required growth agents beyond the original scope of their inception. Students seek to become enriched and engaged; teachers seek to become a part of something valid and meaningful, while leadership desires to nurture those population goals while at the same time desires to understand the very essence of their roles as facilitators of knowledge. The conceptualization of these concepts allows the extension of SLL to allow school leaders to develop the concept of Pragmatic Essentialism into their role as the carrier of knowledge for all student populations, the unlocking of opportunity, and the search for the overall essence of education as an instructional practice (Biesta, 2012).
The concept of shared leadership offers opportunities for teachers and school leaders to mesh as collective school developers. This collaborative event allows for the blending of leadership experience and teacher practice to support the higher development of educational practices that meet the current standards of student-centered learning through innovative methods of essential instructional engagement. This movement toward essentialism allows school leaders to work in unison with academic teachers to invest in research-based practices and to identify the essence of educational purposes in all disciplines. Through shared operational and research-based events, we sought the value of instruction for all parties. This historical humanist approach to problem solving drives the conceptualization of organized socialized academic engagement and thought. We act on historical educational manifestations because we can use them to build learning that builds all parties invested in the current school culture. Learning is the action of doing and sharing the collective responsibility of educational essentialism as a shared avenue (Sidorkin, 2013). We shaped our need for professional growth and development based on the foundations of this action. This work is just beginning, as once we establish the need for shared leadership learning as an ideology and method. It promotes concerted action by combining and interacting with individuals’ interests and capacities to produce outcomes beyond those achieved by individuals alone. The establishment of a Shared Leadership for Learning model does not negate the importance of formal, delegated leadership in providing “top-down” inspiration, guidance, and instruction in the traditional concept of administration. School leadership from a management perspective must still be a relevant operational initiative placed on principals from outside forces, including district and state mandates. Shared Leadership for Learning is not an open and direct democracy; it serves as a republic of practice. The strength of shared learning leadership is its emphasis on the potential for concentrated collaborative research practices that allow the school leader to establish deeper connections with their faculty and faculty with leadership to be mutually supportive (Bolden et al., 2008). The purpose is to create a pathway for higher collaboration to meet the needs of teachers and students, as needs continue to shift in scope and practice.
To facilitate change, schools must invest a complete plan in their organizational structures to drive inclusion, involvement, and investment from all stakeholders (Backhaus & Vogel, 2022). Shared leadership learning is not an operational investment. Collectivism has a continuous involvement and responsibility, as it relates to structural academic enrichment methods for all student populations. School leadership is not only responsible for the development of instruction cycles in our schools; they are active learners themselves and are responsible for collective learning. Sullivan and Richardson, (2011) developed this conceptual framework for collective practices by arguing that instructional responsibility should be delegated a much as possible though academic teams across multiple disciplines, this is the nexus event between cultural change and systematic learning. When the sharing of leadership becomes a continuous event; school leaders are tasked with not only having a clear foundational knowledge of learning but must also foster the ability to place the proper personnel in key positions to ensure a successful cultural transition to ensure the essential essence of knowledge and achievement we are seeking as an academic institution. This well-constructed and effective shared leadership practice at the comprehensive school level creates the potential for a dynamic school culture that makes the innovation of learning a top-down community ideology (Backhaus & Vogel, 2022).
From my practitioner position, we, as school leaders, must understand the role that we serve as lead agents in academic and instructional planning, development, and implementation. This does not mean that the principal and other school administrators should become content experts in every school discipline. However, this is not feasible. I know the limits of my core discipline knowledge across areas of academic focus I might have once struggled as a student and had limited teaching experience within those fields. However, as school leadership builds a foundational understanding through collective collaborative research, the most effective strategies and conceptual designs to value are placing the highest commitment to student achievement and enrichment practices. The essence of philosophy and practice is the cultivation of beliefs in school leadership. We will continue to research and build practices across our shared leadership learning network that drives the instructional vision of inclusion and purpose. In the shared instructional leadership culture the school principal as head leader shapes the direction of the institution’s academic instructional goals (Akyurek et al., 2024)
3. Summary
Effective instructional methods need to be purposeful and collaborative in the development, implantation, evaluation, and reflection cycles of new professional development practices. In my operational practice as a school leader, during discussions and evaluations, teachers have displayed a great interest in instructional development training and workshops that open the door for purpose, meaning, and engagement. Fullan (2008) defends that companies who are serious about understanding the values of their employees and what motivations drive them, make a deeper connection to the factors that drive their own operational goals and motivators. Teachers not only want to feel the purpose, but many strongly desire to be part of this process of development. The most effective way to mentor and shape teachers is to allow them to feel that they are truly a part of the educational culture we seek to build on campus. The concept of shared leadership must be open and democratic. As seen in many school districts, a nepotistic oligarchy system of selective shared leadership has a greater negative impact on a campus than that ruled by a singularity leader. Shared Leadership Practice promotes and elevates the faculties’ professional status while demonstrating their expertise to support their own professional enrichment driving school inquiry and engagement (Printy & Marks, 2006)]
The instructionally purposeful leaders promoted within this literature continue to cooperate with teachers and staff to develop shared visions for school improvement. School Administration encourages teachers to collaboratively examine evidence and data on student scholastic growth, supporting professional practices that encourage teachers to implement strategies to improve student inquiry, engagement, and knowledge (Graczewski et al., 2009; Merrill & Daugherty, 2010). While the faculty supports leadership in instructional design and purpose, we must continually lose sight of the vision that as educators, we are budling these conceptual frameworks to promote student instructional improvement, driving an essence of purpose in their academic or vocational pursuits. Transformational leaders inspire changes from an inspirational figure head standpoint. The days of the single head who generates the school vision as a visual example is becoming a more difficult concept in the ever-evolving educational landscape. The new emerging role of the school leader is one who models the behaviors, expectations and the vision of the school for all members of the school community collectively (Brauckmann & Pashiardis, 2010). Sharing leadership across school events, especially in instructional development, enhances the collective capacity of all the stakeholders. Recent research on shared leadership practices found that teachers who were offered a higher level of shared leadership responsibilities showed to present a higher level of student engagement in their individual classrooms (Liu et al., 2021). Simply stated, the higher the teacher self-esteem and purpose (Fullan) the better the overall outcome to the bottom-line. In this case student achievement and knowledge development.
Variables for continued literature and additional research are needed to continue driving improvements for Shared Leadership for Learning to further develop theory and action across school settings across our institutional landscapes. Measuring the effectiveness of teacher and leadership collaboration across elementary, intermediate, and secondary school settings. What are the impacts, strengths, and barriers across different age groups of students as far as needs and levels of academic development and interventions need to place the needed value on Shared Leadership for Learning capacities. School leaders must continue to drive the assumption that all school site stakeholders will understand the ideology of what inclusive instructional development practices can have on student learning, as it relates to Shared Leadership for Learning. The leadership’s role is to identify where communication is fractured and make corrections as needed. School Administration can accommodate a structure of Shared Leadership for Learning by having clear communication and the ability to address external and internal factors that could impact successful development practices. It becomes essentially important for school principals to understand the value of their roles as leaders by developing the personal relationship, instructional and operations skills needed to maintain the effectiveness of an active and engaging school culture (Steyn, 2014). Modeling a vision for Shared Leadership for Learning as not just a new concept but one that is seen as a new ideological practice. Leaders do not sell Shared Leadership for Learning as the latest instructional practice to meet objectives or standards-based practices. School leadership establishes a new pedagogy to promote the essence of knowledge and inquiry for all stakeholders.
4. Methodology
In this article, we dissected the current literature centered on Distributed Leadership Practices; more specifically, the concept of Distributed Leadership Practices supporting a Shared Leadership for Learning framework that allows school leadership and instructional staff to share in the collective development of instructional development and implantation. This process also promotes higher levels of engagement, enrichment, and overall morale in selecting faculty members, as they assume a greater voice and presence in campus operational duties. The idea of building a more cohesive curricular design team supported by Shared Leadership for Learning uses relevant research to enhance stakeholders’ academic enrichment. These events attempted to build interventions that investigated the essence of educational purposes in ideology to build inquiries for all learners on campus.
Further research is required to build on this essential theoretical framework. To understand the essence of learning further, leadership must support a humanist and holistic culture of shared practices for all stakeholders. Seeking these answers in future studies attempts to analyze the following factors:
1) How does an experienced instructional practitioner administrator through Shared Leadership for Learning, help promote higher levels of professional development practices and improve teachers’ attitudes and self-esteem regarding their role as educators in secondary settings?
2) How does an experienced instructional practitioner administrator through Shared Leadership for Learning, support student benefits in a secondary setting in terms of enrichment, engagement, and overall feelings about the school culture/climate supporting essentialism in their educational development?
5. Result and Findings
Studies of instructional leadership originated in the early 1980s on schools identified it as effective at fostering instructional quality and student achievement (Zahn et al., 2023). Tracing the effectiveness of shared leadership practices has been documented as effective when there is a commitment to successful outcomes. The purpose of this essay was to demonstrate the need for shared leadership practices in comprehensive school settings with a focus on the need to focus these theoretical concepts of leadership and instructional collective collaboration and shared scholastic outcomes. However, data in my research area are still limited. limited data in this There are still examples within the education setting where Shared Leadership for Learning Frameworks demonstrate as an effective methodology for student enrichment and knowledge development. The findings demonstrate how shared leadership positively impacts subsequent educational practices, allowing discussion to develop best practices for the next step.
1) Teacher Collaboration
2) Teacher Enrichment
3) Student Engagement
4) Cultural Advancement
5) Addressing Challenges and Barriers
Teacher collaboration is an essential component of today’s academic instruction and curriculum program so much that we will be pressed to fine much of the current literature related to schooling and education that does not mention cooperation and sharing of best practices as a primary course of action. Teachers’ academic professional development and growth have been shown to be connected to visible and supportive site leadership; principals who foster open communication, direct collaboration, and respect for ideas are a great motivator for an advanced school cultural mindset (Grosemans et al., 2015). Furthermore, Austin and Harkins (2008) demonstrated that visible and engaging school leaders who were instrumental in the development and implementation of the shared vision of the school created shared learning events that took time to recognize school success along with faculty and support staff who were key collaborators to improve learning and achievement. Value is a primary goal within a collaborative climate and a significant factor in the creation of Shared Leadership for Learning school culture. Faculty and support staff wish to feel a purpose and willingly allow contributors who are offered the opportunity to contribute to school’s social and academic development (Austin & Harkins, 2008). School leaders who are committed to a shared system of learning to meet the goals of a holistic school culture must remember the primary tenant. Most teachers have a strong desire to improve their students’ lives, while simultaneously developing a higher sense of practice toward their own careers as knowledge bearers. Leithwood and Mascall (2008) collectively found that having a developed structure in place for shared leadership had significant positive impacts on teacher instruction and overall positive view on the school culture, while disorganized school organizations that lacked clear communication or collaborative events created a very negative perception of both school culture and job satisfaction.
From the academic and instructional sides of education, it is safe to make the statement that student engagement is one of the most important elements for school leaders and teachers to undertake on a daily school day. Engagement according to Vygotsky is it is most basic element engagement is the connection for the learner to both the social and physical world, the student or learner build their own individual inquiry and identify from this connection and in the very essence of learning becomes engaged toward the world through a sense of inquisitive questioning and inquiry (Sidorkin, 2013). In a much more basic sense, teacher engagement seeks to make connections for students in a continuous pattern that seeks to develop both physical and social relations in the school setting, which causes a movement toward self-learning and inquiry. Within a shared leadership network system for learning that seeks to build a common vision among uncommon students might present a challenge. Student engagement breaks from the atavistic one-teacher one-classroom to a more open forum of learning, which supports the collective culture of the school as its own best resource. The principal seeks to take the lead in this event, and it is the primary catalyst for establishing a school culture that supports these more community-centered engagement goals (Thessin et al., 2020). We are slowly seeing this shift in other parts of the world, but the time is now to build these collective shared instructional pedagogies in the United States. The purpose of this essay is to argue that educators must not see only the structural advantages of Shared Leadership for Learning from an operational event. As school stakeholders, we must see the benefits of site leadership undertaking a larger role in the educational and instructional philosophy of the school. Thessin et al., (2020) conducted a mixed methods study in which they attempted to measure how school administration interacted with which school leadership teams to meet the academic needs of high target student populations. However, this result was not directly related to a shared learning leadership event, as principals were more in an observational position. It was concluded that school administration has a positive impact on academic programs and overall student engagement. However, there is still a great need for school administrators to have a higher level of academic awareness and instructional knowledge to push for even greater gains for high-needs students (Thessin et al., 2020). The argument for more research that develops from this essay continues to support the belief that for true engagement to become a higher value, school leadership (administration) needs to become more invested in their own personal development practices. In a comprehensive school setting, the school principal is second only to the teacher on the direct impact on student learning and achievement (Seashore et al., 2010).
School Performance is a topic of constant debate across educational circles and will continue to be. In this study, we measured school performance and enhancement using a Shared Leadership spectrum. The concept of new practices seeks to improve the overall effectiveness of student learning, teacher morale, and a sense of community stakeholder cohesiveness. New conceptual designs require leadership and teachers to commit to change. We consider the risk of new concepts creating a more coherent system of learning that drives engagement and overall culture (Kallio & Halverson, 2020). What we seek to build in conceptual theory is the same effort of collectivism that teachers offer to students in the classroom. The break from teacher-centered instruction to holistic student-centered cooperation. However, we are making an assertive attempt to establish this cultural foundation of school leadership and instruction as an operational continuance. The essential goal is to identify the need for leadership to create the capacity for shared events across the structure of the campus, while at the same time making a commitment to personal professional development to understand the key components of classroom dynamics and teacher needs (Kallio & Halverson, 2020).
Challenges and barriers will be presented in any school change event and need to be anticipated. The most pressing challenges will be with principals, who view themselves as transformative figures who can delegate authority without undertaking the nuances of the need. Transactional or transformative school leadership is not necessarily a bad component of leadership, and there are times when school leaders must call upon their experience as an authority, decider, or event or action (Leithwood et al., 2019). However, given the changing times and advanced needs of the school site, the ability to transfer from active leaders to active participants is a major contributor to an overall inclusive school culture (Leithwood et al., 2019). The second greatest challenge is non-stakeholder commitment to the change. The most impactful audience would be teachers who are unwilling to participate in collectivism. Whitaker (2018) defined negative events as those that are either too sacred to make change or too uncommitted to the overall concept of teaching to make change. There is not much we can do to the latter and due process and unions protect even the ones who are least protectable. The faculties who operate in fear are those that we can grow in both acceptance and cooperation. The entire process of Shared Learning for Leadership is providing all stakeholder with the opportunity to both lead and have a voice. School leadership can help nudge them in the right direction toward this endeavor. That is why is it essential when we discuss a Shared Leadership for Learning Framework, we are building school principals and other administrators who are working on their own instructional practice and teaching pedagogies so they can create those crucial and necessary conversations with their faculty and support team to quantify the most eager populations to support this concept. The only way we can create Shared Leadership for Learning as holistic essentialism is when we see value in our roles and relationships.
6. Conclusion
The hopes of this review allow leadership practices to continue to revolutionize themselves into a new conceptual pedagogical manifesto that bridges academic stakeholders into a collective experience with the essence of knowledge developing an achievement. The long-term hope is to use shared leadership as an applicable practice within a school system that works directly alongside other academic institutions to support Horace Mann’s dream of an educated society seeking to engage and build love of knowledge for all. Administrators and teachers are perpetually connected by collective leadership. These academic and social components work in concert to increase leadership capacity building and restorative cultural practices, which lead to classroom and school improvements, resulting in higher levels of enrichment and positive student outcomes (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006).
Horace Mann created the first public education system on this belief, in hopes that an equal availability of schooling for all would reduce social divisions in the growing American Society. Mann (cited in Cremin, 1971) states that, “education, then, beyond all other divides of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men—the balance wheel of social machinery. Brathwaite (2017) further states that this belief is never expressed when the vision of learning as an event is not met. The need to believe that education is love, and love is knowledge. Teaching is not a job or career. Education is a call; we are called from a deep spirit to lead voices from the ashes of anguish to the ode of the spirit. School Principalship must continue to answer this calling by building a series of instructional methodologies through a Shared Leadership for Learning Framework which drive engagement and essential enrichment for their entire school community.