Possibility to Engage in Pedagogical Leadership as Experienced by Finnish Newly Appointed Principals

Tapio Juhani Lahtero^1, and Lea Kuusilehto-Awale²

¹Training and Development Centre Brahea, University of Turku, Finland

²Institute on Educational Leadership, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Cite this paper:
Tapio Juhani Lahtero and Lea Kuusilehto-Awale. Possibility to Engage in Pedagogical Leadership as Experienced by Finnish Newly Appointed Principals. American Journal of Educational Research. 2015; 3(3):318-329. doi: 10.12691/education-3-3-11

Abstract

This qualitative research was based on the construct of broad based pedagogical leadership, which comprises not only technical, human and educational (pedagogical) but also symbolic leadership, the meanings interpreted from the principal’s ordinary activity by the school community, the web of which is understood as the cultural leadership of the school. The research purpose was to find out newly appointed principals’ views on what the most common situations of technical, human and educational (pedagogical) leadership were in their ordinary work and how they could enhance the realization of the pedagogical perspective. The data consisted of the written descriptions of the eighteen participants beginning an in-service training. The responses were analyzed with thematic analysis. The dominance of the technical leadership tasks with routine administration as the most common was the biggest obstacle to advancing the pedagogical perspective. The most common human leadership task was interaction and that of pedagogical leadership was strategic leadership. Human and pedagogical leadership tasks were perceived to be partly overlapping. In contrast to studied international research, the respondents made no mention of leading quality teaching, a quality learning environment or strategic resourcing. The informants did not identify symbolic and cultural leadership components. The findings imply that school based management without an increase in managerial human resource in schools efficiently prevents enhancing pedagogical leadership, perceived as the core task of a principal’s ordinary work, that in studying leadership the context always needs to be considered, and that principals’ in-service training ought to comprise broad based pedagogical leadership to inculcate the holistic and integrative character of principalship. These issues merit further and comparative research.

Keywords:
pedagogical leadership broad based pedagogical leadership instructional leadership human leadership technical leadership

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