Instructional leadership is generally defined as the management of curriculum and instruction carried out by a school principal. The term emerged from research associated with the effective schools movement of the 1980s, which found that a principal's own role was key to running a successful school. More recently the concept has stretched to include more distributed models of the same work, ones that emphasize shared empowerment among school staff rather than the principal acting alone, including distributed leadership, shared leadership and transformational leadership.
Facts
Core ClaimInstructional leadership is generally defined as the management of curriculum and instruction carried out by a school principal, a role identified as key to school success by 1980s effective schools research. 1 Origin YearDecade-level: the cited source places the concept's emergence within the 1980s effective schools movement in the United States, not a single year. FAQs
Why has instructional leadership been criticized?
Critics say it centers the principal's heroic role too much; distributed and shared models grew from that critique.
Since the 1990s the concept has been criticized for focusing too much on the individual principal's heroic role. In response, scholars began exploring leadership models that point to the distributed nature of instructional leadership, such as transformational leadership, teacher leadership, shared leadership and distributed leadership. These models treat educational leadership as a practice that includes the wider school community rather than the principal alone.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Instructional Leadership
WikipediaHistory section, first sentence
The concept of instructional leadership emerged and developed in the United States within the effective school movement of the 1980s.
Lead section, first sentence
Instructional leadership is generally defined as the management of curriculum and instruction by a school principal.
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