Transformative Leadership Practices: Tools for Sustained Growth

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe leadership practices most prevalent in sustaining successful educational outcomes for students in economically and culturally diverse learning communities. Educational... [ view full abstract ]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe leadership practices most prevalent in sustaining successful educational outcomes for students in economically and culturally diverse learning communities. Educational leaders struggle with racism, sexism, classism and other challenges beyond instructional leadership (Brooks, Normore and Wilkinson, 2017). To serve ever-broadening needs of students, principals need to interact with their communities more than ever.  The authors reviewed fifteen studies focused on the structures, cultures and activities cultivated within a social justice framework (Liou and Hermanns, 2017).  For this review, the authors operated within a critical framework and searched key words such as social justice, sustainability, transformative, leadership and diversity.  Studies completed in 2008 or later were included.  After completing a combined annotated bibliography, researchers evaluated results using open coding; major themes included leadership structures, leader activities and culture.  Following theme identification, axial coding was utilized to identify commonalities across the 15 reviewed studies. The studies highlight school structures, leader actions and cultures that closely mirror several of the tenets of transformative leadership theory (Shields, 2012).  Successful school structures incorporated student-centered learning, cooperation with community, focus on interdisciplinary learning and shared leadership (Liou and Hermanns, 2017).  Cultural components most prevalent were high student expectations, inclusivity and rejection of meritocracy (Tuters and Portelli, 2017).  Leaders were considered change agents, engaged in discreet social activism and focused on relationships (Ryan and Tuters, 2017). Transformative leadership is a valuable tool for pursuing and applying social justice.   According to Freire’s seminal book, the idea of transformative leadership honors individual student achievement, distribution of power, democratic practices and civic responsibility, an analysis of the structures, actions and culture of successful school leaders creates a starting point for principal preparation (as cited in Reza-Lopez, Charles and Reyes, 2014).  In our increasingly diverse educational environment, it is important to consider the type of leadership that can best facilitate sustainability of success for all students. Recommendations in this paper outline critical areas for consideration in development and implementation of a democratically focused leadership platform.  Preparing leaders for the challenges of meeting individual and community needs within increasingly diverse landscapes is paramount for continued success of marginalized students.  This review narrows current practices in transformative leadership to identify critical focus areas for institutions of higher education in preparing leaders to build systemic capacity for historically marginalized student populations.

Keywords:  Sustainability, transformative leadership, marginalized, training