Which Way Should I Go? Conceptualizing The Myriad of Ways That We Talk About Educational Leadership

Abstract

Over the last several decades, the research literature about educational leadership has expanded exponentially. This richness of work about the concept of educational leadership can be inspiring and intimidating, rich but confusing, soundly differentiated and full of guidance, but somewhat redundant and often far from clear. This paper reports on part of a larger study that has sought to put conceptual perspective into the conversation about educational leadership. This has been done by analyzing a broad range of leadership studies and sorting the essential elements about each conception into one of three key ideas about the concept of educational leadership, including: transactional leadership, transformational leadership, and holistic leadership. The foci of each concept of educational leadership are provided and relevant studies are cited and often quoted in relationship to the characteristics of each feature of that style of educational leadership. Additionally, the resource that is a result of this meta-analysis of the extant literature is situated on a diagrammatic continuum of leadership transition that situates holistic leadership as the goal for educational situations.