Leadership, Capacity Building, and School Improvement: Concepts, Themes, and Impact

Citation

Carlson, C.B. (2013), "Leadership, Capacity Building, and School Improvement: Concepts, Themes, and Impact", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 235-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578231311304733

Clive Dimmock's book Leadership, Capacity Building, and School Improvement: Concepts, Themes, and Impact is part of the Routledge Leadership for Learning Series. Dimmock arranges the book into three sections to develop a unique argument which begins by his unseating conventional descriptive leadership trait models, positing that traditional trait theories fail to explain the current context for which leaders must lead. Citing accountability contexts as creating a dichotomous leadership problem, he juxtaposes an accountability culture with designated leaders’ attempting to involve teachers in participative decision making.

This dichotomy between accountability and involvement creates conflicting messages and results in fewer leaders’ emerging to assume leadership roles within the schools. To address this problem, Dimmock redefines leadership as building capacity to develop schools which are “fit for purpose”. In the second section, Dimmock outlines three distinct leadership concepts: learning‐centred leadership, distributed leadership, and research‐engaged professional learning communities. Taken together, Dimmock concludes this section by examining how leadership preparation needs to consider all three theories to reframe leadership. In the third section, Dimmock discusses and forecasts policy and leadership implications and invites constituents to develop the research and leadership practices necessary to transform today's schools.

Thematic development: interwoven through several chapters, Dimmock examines several themes and explores how themes are interrelated:

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  teacher career ladders towards leadership;

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  the dichotomy of leading in an accountability driven culture;

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  expanding definitions of leader and leadership to include expanding the role and function of the principal as an engaged leader beyond the school building;

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  finding a balance between field practitioner “tacit” knowledge and university research “theoretical” knowledge;

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  using professional learning communities to strategically build leadership capacity in schools;

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  building leadership capacity to meet the needs of schools operating in a knowledge economy; and

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  carefully constructing a leadership capacity model.

Each theme builds upon prior empirical research and forecasts needed research areas to explore leadership situations in today's context.

Structure and format: Dimmock begins each chapter with a detailed overview of the chapter's contents. He concludes each chapter with a bulleted summary of each of the main points or ideas he asks the reader to consider as part of a developing argument. Within each chapter, Dimmock provides some context for the traditional theory, but he quickly uses contemporary theory to explain where the field is emerging. For each new area Dimmock introduces, he explains where theory is developing and how researchers can contribute to the ongoing dialogue, often critiquing claims without support and calling for empirical evidence to substantiate claims. To illustrate key concepts, Dimmock cites empirical research from the past decade, bound by the beginning of the accountability movement; he compares and contrasts England, the USA, and examines Singapore as a case to consider.

Detailed content analysis: in Part I, Dimmock conceptualizes and contextualizes leadership by examining key issues that need to be reconsidered. He outlines the purpose as laying “a clear conceptual foundation for the key issues of educational leadership” (p. 3) that provide a foundation for the rest of the book. Dimmock critiques the scholarship and emphasis of transformative leadership that “seems to outstrip the research and scholarship that would underpin its justification” (p. 3). In Chapter 1, Dimmock introduces one of his main arguments for expanding the way one views and understands leadership, related to the governmental accountability movement, “the greater has become the reliance of the organization on leadership to meet these multiple demands and expectations” (p. 5). Dimmock discusses how building leadership capacity is necessary to optimize “available resources toward the achievement of shared goals” (p. 7); however, leadership capacity must be built from “core values” and “moral purpose” (p. 18) to provide meaning. Dimmock concludes the introductory chapter with a model that shows the interrelationship among organizational, social, and intellectual capitals, which are influenced by a knowledge management strategy, negotiated by converting inputs to outputs through teaching and learning.

In Chapters 2 and 3, Dimmock posits how leadership scholarship has asked important but, perhaps, the wrong questions regarding leading in a complex and changing world. He builds from leadership trait theories and poses important questions, noting trait theories’ inadequacies to address leading in today's context. In these chapters, Dimmock introduces a second argument about schools’ lacking available leaders who need to be cultivated from teachers who may need to be nurtured to fulfil leadership roles. He offers that today's leaders need to be self‐efficacious and open to newer structures as today's demands “place the principal increasingly at the centre of a complex web of stakeholders, in addition to being a conduit through which power and information from the system is channeled to teachers and parents” (p. 53). He builds his argument to suggest that more collaborative roles and structures are necessary to meet the new role's demands.

In Chapter 4, Dimmock reminds the reader about the specific capitals that need to be developed and expands his proposed model to address building capacities to create schools “fit for purpose” (p. 58). He outlines a five‐part process by which leadership capacity can develop to “leverage” capital to enact desired changes which include: redesigning learning‐centred schools as “fit‐for‐purpose”; recruiting and retaining the best teachers to attain learning goals; nurturing, developing, and sustaining teacher and leadership talent; applying informed practices so that all may learn; and adopting accountability systems for “authentic feedback on performance and goal achievement” (p. 58). Dimmock then explains how each process can be developed in a series of stages and steps one can consider. Ultimately, Dimmock outlines a continuum of student and professional learning with inherent modelling of effective practices, guided by continual feedback and supported by consistent internal accountability processes.

In Part II, Dimmock provides contemporary definitions of key concepts and considerations leaders need to consider when leading today's schools. In Chapter 5, Dimmock outlines and explains the transition from instructional leadership to a learning‐centred leadership. Next, he synthesizes ten areas of relevant literature to explain how leader practices influence the learning environment. For each section, he relies upon empirical studies to suggest specific foci upon teaching practices with specific effect‐size gains and poses leadership skills to best facilitate these approaches. He concludes this chapter by suggesting areas for future research which include understanding how leadership functions within schools to produce results consistent with twenty‐first century skills.

While Chapters 5, 6, and 7 could stand alone, Dimmock carefully argues how all three concepts – learning‐centred leadership, distributed leadership, and leadership for professional learning communities – interrelate and culminate with the need to revamp leadership development to include knowledge and practice of each of the concepts. In addition to discussing the leadership skills necessary to accomplish each concept, in Chapter 8, Dimmock emphasizes leaders’ additional needed abilities to participate within and build upon networks external to the school environments. Through this discussion, Dimmock examines the need for leadership preparation programmes to blend tacit and empirical knowledge into its delivery. Citing reasons why current leadership preparation programmes have met criticism, Dimmock suggests six ways programmes should develop today's leaders, moving from passive learning to active learning modes (case studies, problem‐based learning, and internships), incorporating adult learning theory into programme design, and offering candidates choice and influence over their own learning. He concludes Chapter 8 and this section by exploring how to evaluate the impact of leadership training and leadership professional development activities.

Part III, titled Policy, Leadership Practice and Impact reframes the conceptual capacities into actionable considerations facing leaders and leadership development. Chapter 9 explores specialist schools, comparing schools in England and Singapore and continues to develop the argument that new forms of leadership are needed and necessary. Chapter 10 extends the transformative leadership framework to discuss the needs for twenty‐first century knowledge economies. Dimmock suggests another conceptual model that addresses leadership practices, redefining and explicating the learning‐centred leadership, distributed leadership, and community and networking leadership by using a backward mapping approach. Through backward mapping, Dimmock posits schools can “transform” by leaders’ understanding twenty‐first century skills, revamping curricula and related assessments, and by restructuring schools and leadership opportunities to mirror twenty‐first century knowledge economies. In the final chapter, Dimmock reframes leadership capacity to include the leader's developing personal dispositions and interpersonal skills within an emerging understanding of a school's context and culture. Using this framework, Dimmock poses thoughtful questions to elucidate the relationships among leadership, context, and societal culture. Dimmock concludes the book by establishing needed research areas which invite researchers to consider the emerging contexts for principal leadership and to understand the ways in which leadership is utilized beyond the school's head or designated leader.

Dimmock's book serves purposes to researchers, principal preparation programmes, and practitioners. This book provides researchers opportunities to consider key and emerging questions related to how leadership is conceptualized and explored. This book provides leadership trainers/programmes with a thoughtful discourse to critique existing structures. This book engages all leaders to utilize evolving leadership approaches to build leadership capacity in an accountable, knowledge‐based economy.