Abstract
The past five decades has seen four dominant models of educational leadership emerge, as the fashion shifted from managerial, towards instructional, then transformational, and the currently dominant distributed approach. At the same time, other models have emerged in literature such as moral, authentic, systems, and contingency leadership. This paper focuses attention on the leadership approach expected by the senior leader (‘Directors’) of well-established autonomous traditional international schools governed by a parental-led Board, where a complexity of tensions and dualities has previously been reported by literature. At the same time, this body of schools stands under-reported upon. Following an analysis of the action verbs found in 10 job adverts, across 10 nations globally, we can identify a strong pattern of anticipated role, characterised by the ‘old fashioned’ managerial, and instructional approaches, with the Director being expected to steer the school on a steady, continuous course rather than instigate any major change or innovation. A role of responsible stewardship emerges, with the Director being expended to maintain, continue, and oversee events as previously done by others. The lack of scope for distributed or contingency leadership seems surprising given the changing social and political environment that the schools occupy.
Introduction
The nature of the ‘traditional’ international school
Dimmock and Walker (2000: 143) had noted that although: ‘educational leadership and management has experienced impressive development over the last three decades the fact that a robust comparative branch of the field has failed to emerge is equally conspicuous’.
Lumby (2006) had pointed to the complexity of the comparative field. Mulford (2005: 139) had investigated ‘the direction and nature of research in educational leadership in Australia, the USA and the UK’, yet there was little discussion about transnational leadership models. As noted by one study into International Baccalaureate (IB) World Schools (Calnin et al., 2018: 99), numbering 5700 in 160 nations in November 2023: ‘A paucity of research explores educational leadership in transnational and multicultural settings’.
Our paper is concerned with the well-established yet under-reported arena of international and comparative education involving expensive private K-12 schools around the world delivering the values-driven IB Diploma Programme (IBDP) in English, committed to intercultural education and global peace, largely outside an English-speaking nation. Such a focus on ‘traditional international schools’ (Hayden and Thompson, 2013), catering largely for an expatriate community within an autonomous and non-profit paradigm is still lacking in detail about leadership practice. We know the senior leadership tend to be trained in Anglo-Western nations, with one study in Malaysia showing the senior leaders ‘had English as their mother tongue, were white and from the UK, Australia, and the US’ (Gibson and Bailey, 2023: 409). However, we know little about their leadership traits, personal background and career, and intended/actual character of action.
Cravens (2018) had directly argued the case for a greater understanding of the nature of leadership in traditional international schools. This seems important given the well-established reports that this type of school has inherent leadership challenges. They have a very high turnover of senior leaders, with most serving/surviving less than four years (Benson, 2011) and many leaving after being dismissed due to disputes with the parental-led Board of Trustees (Blandford and Shaw, 2004). Tarc (2018: 486) refers to ‘complex, power-laden, and sometimes fraught social relations’, whilst Caffyn (2010) had asserted the schools are especially prone to micro-political tensions. Caffyn (2018) had said they are prone to ‘vampirism’, a situation where stakeholders can slowly drain the energy and positivity of the senior leader largely due to the complexity of boundary management.
At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, the schools seem to thrive and grow, implying that the leaders, despite the turbulence, successfully ‘steer the ship’ without ‘rocking the boat’, offering a sense of responsible stewardship. The number of international schools has doubled over the past decade, reaching 14,000 by January 2024, with the biggest bloc being in India, followed by mainland China, and the largest market of students being in the United Arab Emirates (according to data mined by the market intelligence agency ISC Research). However, it is still largely true to assert that ‘empirical research examining leadership in this context is scarce’ (Lee et al., 2012). Bailey and Gibson (2020: 1007) asserted that: Although there is an extensive literature across a range of national contexts concerning the evolving role of the school leader, little has been written about the rapidly expanding world of international school leadership.
The newer and increasingly dominant ‘non-traditional’ (Hayden and Thompson, 2013) type is operated largely for-profit within a network or grouping of commercially driven, branded schools (such as Nord Anglia, Cognita, and Dulwich International) catering for local parents, largely in Asia and the Middle East. This newer type has begun to attract research attention into leadership issues (e.g. Gibson and Bailey, 2024; James and Sheppard, 2014; Machin, 2014; Roundell, 2023). However, at present, this discussion tends to focus on governance tensions and challenges rather than leadership styles or models in practice.
To reiterate an important point, our paper focuses attention on the relatively small-scale well-established ‘traditional’ type, epitomised by the 1924-established ‘International Schools’ in Geneva, and Yokohama (note: 100 years old in 2024), and what the role of the senior leader is expected or implied to entail, through an analysis of job adverts i.e. it addresses the question ‘What is the appointed senior leader in a traditional international school expected to do?’ This in turn, will allow us to identify what sort of leadership model is being expected from the newly appointed leader. In doing this, we are building upon a previous study (Roberts and Mancuso, 2014: 91) of 84 job adverts between 2006 and 2012 that had revealed that the ‘transformational leadership style required the most detailed analysis’, but it also was concluded that ‘school boards around the world have a stable and high level of demand for managerial and instructional’ approaches. This demand for managerial leadership fits well with the notion that the anticipated role is one of stewardship, allowing the school to be handed over to a successor who will also ‘steer the ship’.
The complexity of leadership models
There is a need to distinguish between leadership ‘models’ and ‘styles’ as the two are inter-linked yet different, whilst as already shown above they can be confusingly inter-changed in literature. Bush (2018a) suggest that the latter is more akin to individualistic behaviour or doing everyday business, an aspect of character, which might need to differ between schools as it is highly contextual, whilst models are more systematic, an approach to leadership within a framework, and dependent upon historical trends or fads. Moreover, it is argued that the constant emergence of ill-defined adjectival leadership models, which are arguments variables, and not constructs, reify leadership but do not capture the complexity and potential of practice.
Bush and Glover (2014: 553) noted there are always ‘new models emerging and established approaches being redefined and further developed’. One of the earliest models, prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, is ‘managerial’ (Hallinger, 1992). This was followed by ‘instructional’, which emerged in the 1980s and has become institutionalised as a permanent feature of the leadership model literature (Hallinger, 2005). The teaching-focused ‘instructional’ model was subsequently replaced in importance by ‘transformational’, and both dominated the 1980s and 1990s (Hallinger, 2003), followed by ‘distributed’ (Bush, 2015). Indeed, Lumby (2016: 161) stated that ‘distributed’ had ‘grown to become the preferred leadership concept and has acquired taken-for-granted status’. By 2018 it was being declared in the EMAL journal that ‘Distributed leadership is the normatively preferred leadership model, judging by the number of manuscripts on this theme submitted to this journal’ (Bush, 2018b: 435).
Hallinger (2005) had argued that over the previous two decades, the literature on the most suitable leadership model for school leaders had focused on instructional leadership and transformational leadership. One systematic review of literature (Gumus et al., 2018) had found between 1980 and 2014 there was an increasing interest in leadership models and the most studied are distributed leadership, instructional leadership, teacher leadership, and transformational leadership. Another review (Daniëls et al., 2019) vindicated these four models as being prevalent in literature.
Bush and Glover (2003) had developed a typology of eight types of school leadership, taken from Leithwood et al., (1999). This sort of typology is seen by Harris (2005: 73) as ‘a particularly effective way of organizing and interrogating different theoretical perspectives’. Bush and Glover (2014), in an updated version of the 2003 paper, and building upon a theoretical framework that argues the school leader has influence, values, and visions, subsequently developed a nine-fold model, building upon the 1999 model mentioned above, alongside Bush (2011).
Leadership issues in international schools
It is acknowledged that schools, in general, are ‘complex, evolving, loosely linked systems’ (Hawkins and James, 2018). There is a strong case for arguing that international schools in general are especially difficult institutions to lead, and it is argued that senior leaders face the particularly complex challenge of establishing and maintaining the legitimacy of the ‘international school’ as a particular type of transnational institution (Fertig and James, 2016).
The complexity and loosely linked aspects are especially problematic, especially the duality of serving the parents as consumers and owners of the school (Keller, 2015). As noted by Gross (2024: 23) ‘school leaders are often working in isolation and need to deal with critical incidents in a culturally diverse environment’. At the same time, to compound the problem, it is accepted that the senior leaders are rarely prepared for the role.
Studies are beginning (arguably, rather slowly) to move from being descriptive towards being critical. One study (Al Haj Sleiman, 2021: 16) looking at leadership practices in England and Qatar had concluded that a greater diversity of approaches was needed whilst ‘the one-size-fits-all approach represents a mono-dimensional hegemonic approach that has not and will not serve twenty-first century students and societies’. Al Haj Sleiman's (2024) doctoral study had found that, in the main, the senior leader tends to be isolated (supporting Gross’, 2024, assertions), reporting above to the Board, and acting with little collaboration or distribution of responsibility. Bailey and Gibson's study from Malaysia into how prepared senior leaders are for the role showed they are very unprepared for ensuring steady governance, which seems surprising given the continuous growth of the field, whilst another study from Malaysia (Adams and Velarde, 2021) had revealed that the senior leaders feel maintaining the safety of the school and its stakeholders is a key challenge and task, implying that stewardship is the key task in practice.
Ellen Kelly's (2022) study in Kuwait among leaders who had moved from the public system in their home nation showed that dealing with the high level of transience was a major challenge. A study of IB programme implementation in Asia showed (Hallinger and Lee, 2012: 477) that instructional leadership ‘contributed to smoother student transitions across IB programmes’. A study in Dubai (Abdallah and Forawi, 2017) found that administrative tasks such as dealing with parental inquiries were the major aspect of time-use, which implies a form of ‘vampirisim’.
Hill (2018) had also argued that traditional international schools are especially complex institutions, and suggested leaders might utilise the experiences of the teaching body more, implying that distributed leadership might be a solution. Hill (2014) had earlier identified international schools as ‘complex cultural artefacts’, arguing that leaders should utilise the history and culture of the school, implying that an involvement of ‘local’ personnel might be helpful, perhaps with a co-principalship model of distributed leadership. This had been supported by an earlier case study (Murakami-Ramalho and Benham, 2010) into leadership dynamics. Such an alternative model has been studied, in the context of China, where some international schools have a Western-male principal and a Chinese-female counterpart.
Evidence from Qatar (Sawalhi and Tamimi, 2023) shows how the regulatory landscape can change quite suddenly, implying that a contingency model might be most appropriate. A study from Vietnam (Williams and Richardson, 2023: 1) has revealed that leaders had shown how building trust is important and ‘highlights the importance of crisis management skills for administrators in international schools as these types of schools tend to be relatively isolated from the host country’. That study had also placed an importance on moral and contingency leadership styles.
At the same time, we know that the leaders are most often not familiar with the cultural and social setting of the school especially in Asia and Middle East since most are from Western-centric nations. One study in Malaysia had concluded that the body of senior leaders there ‘had English as their mother tongue, were white and from Western countries such as the UK, Australia, and the US’ (Gibson and Bailey, 2023: 409). Another study revealed (Keung and Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2013) that transformational leadership was a challenge for those who lacked high levels of cultural intelligence. Kelly's (2017, Abstract) Doctoral study among schools in Germany had shown ‘how school leaders may contribute to the challenges they encounter through their poor understanding of the cultural contexts that they operate in’.
The study into the leadership role of leaders in IB World Schools (Calnin et al., 2018) had concluded that: ‘the IB's complex and globally dispersed school network means that leaders cannot be expected to follow a single model or paradigm of leadership practice’. Fisher's (2021: 134) study of eight leaders in eight different nations showed that they ‘do adapt their actions, most often using different communication styles but also methods of building collaboration and trust, and decision-making structures’. The use of the words ‘adapt their actions’ implied a form of contingency/situational leadership, with leaders moving towards creating their own role dependent on the societal cultural situation.
A study into the role of middle management in Malaysia (Javadi et al., 2017: 476) showed ‘the centrality of teaching and learning’, implying that the senior leadership is largely absent from direct involvement with pedagogic and curricula matters whilst this is devolved to the middle managers such as Heads of Department or IB Programme Coordinators. Overall, no literature can be found that mentions the senior having a teaching role, implying that the teacher-led model is largely absent. It is worth mentioning here the point that the senior leader tends to called a ‘Director’, not a ‘Headteacher’, implying that teaching issues are the preserve of an important level of middle management.
Overall, from a relatively limited scope of research inquiry which seems to largely span the last 15 years and involving studies from Asia (Malaysia in particular) and the Middle East, five main issues seem to dominate the current discourse, revealing a firm sense of common assumptions being made by researchers and commentators. First, the traditional international school is acknowledged to be a particularly complex institution to lead with many boundaries and stakeholders which points to the possibility of distributed, and system, leadership being relevant. Second, the position of Director seems to involve little, if any, direct teaching involvement, which undermines any instructional or authentic leadership role. Third, the fact that most Directors are Western-trained leads to an assumption that they lack cultural intelligence, and implies they are inadequately trained or prepared for the job which undermines any contingency leadership role. Four, the school is assumed to a self-contained system with little involvement with external partners. Five, the changing conditions of the school seems to assume that a contingency leadership model would be needed, hence we can see little discussion (in 2024) of other leadership models in practice.
Method
Established in 1990 and with 20 offices based around the world, Search Associates is ‘a leading recruitment agency that helps school boards in international schools find new leaders’ (Roberts and Mancuso, 2014: 92). The use of the term ‘school boards’ here implies that the agency supports well-established, non-profit driven ‘traditional international schools’. Once contracted by the board, the agency begins the process ‘with an on-site school visit, meetings with stakeholders, crafting a job description and compiling a list of desired skills based on these meetings, posting the position, and screening’ (Roberts and Mancuso, 2014: 92). The process ‘is quite costly’ (Roberts and Mancuso, 2014: 93) and therefore, ‘generally, it is top-tier schools that consider the expense an absolute necessity’ (Roberts and Mancuso, 2014: 93).
The website within its ‘Leadership Vacancies’ page usually lists, at any one point in time, 10–15 ‘Heads of School’ vacancies, mostly with a six-month application deadline. At the same time, there is usually a listing of 30–40 ‘Other Leadership Posts’ including Heads of Department or Deputy-Heads. This number of postings has been consistent over time, with Roberts and Mancusos’s (2014: 93) study observing 51 ‘Heads of School’ postings from September 2010 to September 2012.
The official website of Search Associates in August 2023 showed 10 schools searching for a new ‘Director’, posted between April and August 2023. As said, this is a normal amount within a six-month period of time. The detail about the intended profile and character (i.e. leadership style) of such ‘Directors’ was analysed in a previous paper using similar data from Search Associates in 2021 and so a direct comparison can be made between the intended style of the Director (such as requiring a ‘strong sense of humour’) and the anticipated model of leadership. The 10 schools are in Africa (Egypt and Tanzania), Asia (Japan, Thailand and Korea), India, the Middle East (Duba and Qatar), and South America (Brazil and Ecuador).
A total of 3000 words was analysed for the major words, and their frequency. Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) has been identified (Brummer, 2022: 17) as a useful way of assessing ‘at-a-distance’ the intended outcomes of leadership style. Although it tends to be used in psychology literature to examine political/diplomatic action, it has been used in school leadership analysis (e.g. Garcia et al., 2014). Hermann (2005) used LTA to identify the main action verbs that describe the actions of the role. The action verbs observed were analysed within the nine school leadership models framework presented by Bush and Glover (2014), which still appears to be the most comprehensive typology based upon a review of the available literature. Further, it includes models beyond the ‘big 4’ (in historical order: managerial, instructional, transformational and distributed) that one might instinctively associate with traditional international schools, such as moral leadership, and contingency leadership. This allows the implied leadership model to be identified. The nine leadership models will be discussed next in the order that they appear in Bush and Glover's (2014) paper (i.e. not in order of importance).
Findings
The overall picture
A total of 34 action verbs were identified (see Table 1 below for the full listing). The verb ‘develop’ was by far the most mentioned, at least four times by each advert. This implies an emphasis on building upon previous practice, as a steward rather than innovator or transformer. Indeed, the latter two terms were barely mentioned, whilst the verbs ‘continue’ and ‘maintain’, as well as ‘retain’ were much more common.
The frequency of the action verbs.
Other major verbs, such as ‘support’, ‘ensure’ and ‘monitor’ were seen across all 10 adverts, imply a strong managerial role, perhaps involving goals and targets, perhaps with a degree of performance-related pay (this issue needs investigation). A large tail-end was noticed, with 11 verbs only being mentioned in a single advert.
Instructional leadership
It is not clear if Bush and Glover (2014) had drawn up a hierarchical framework, however this model was not the main one with regard to the adverts. The model of instructional leadership, or ‘learning-centred leadership’ (Bush and Glover, 2014: 555) would assume that the Director of the traditional international school is responsible for ensuring that the teaching and learning in the school is adequate and sufficient. The verb ‘teach’ did not appear, and ‘demonstrate’ appeared only one. School A expected the Director to: Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching and learning methodologies. Promote innovative educational practices and integrate technology in teaching and learning. The action verbs ‘operate’ and ‘monitor’ appeared 14 times, across all 10 adverts. The verb ‘instruct’ was not explicitly mentioned in the 10 adverts, however, almost every school mentioned the need to develop and oversee high standards of teaching and high standards of learning, in line with the findings by Roberts and Mancuso (2014). We found much evidence in the adverts that the appointed leader is not expected to teach, but rather is expected to oversee teaching standards (‘oversee’ appeared in all 10 adverts).
In line with the appointed person being a ‘Director’ not ‘Headteacher’ there was very little direct mention of ‘teacher/ing quality’. In fact, teaching was only mentioned in five adverts, and in regard to appointing teachers. School D said: The Director will be expected to recruit, appoint and retain staff…to secure high quality teaching and learning and constantly raise standard of attainment and progress. This was the only direct reference to ensuring ‘high quality’ teaching. Instead, the term ‘quality’ was most often used in reference to learning.
Managerial leadership
Arguably, this was the dominant model in the adverts. Bush and Glover (2003: 556) state the managerial leadership model is where ‘the focus of leaders ought to be on functions, tasks and behaviours’. This role was very prevalent in all the job adverts, as was also identified by Roberts and Mancuso (2014). To reiterate an important point the major verb was ‘develop’ (46 mentions, across all 10 adverts). The second major action verb used was ‘support’ (23 mentions), followed by ‘ensure (22 mentions). School A asks that the Director: Develop and execute fundraising initiatives to support the school's financial sustainability and enhance educational resources. A clear task is to do with being responsible for the school's finances, within a budget (‘financial’ was mentioned in all 10 adverts, and ‘budget’ was mentioned six times), and this seemed to be one of the few areas where the Director could develop and introduce their own initiatives. School A wants the Director to: Develop and execute fundraising initiatives to support the school's financial sustainability and enhance educational resources. Similarly, School F wanted the Director to: Develop additional revenue streams beyond school fees. The word ‘establish’ was used by four times, with School E sees the Director: Establishing annual work objectives that are consistent with the School's Strategic Plan and accepted program direction’ which seems consistent with the managerial leadership focus. School I sees the Director: Operating the school within an uncertain business climate and increasing competition while maintaining financial stability.
Several schools made it clear that the Director should report back to the Board (who employed them). School F says that: The Director is responsible for advising, reporting, and making recommendations to the Board in regard to these activities, and shall perform all duties and accept all responsibility that comes with being the Director of the school. The word ‘duties’ was used by eight schools, implying a form of transactional model was expected with the Director maintaining the status quo. As reported already, a strong sense of duty of care amongst Directors has been noticed by studies (e.g. Adams and Velarde, 2021). There is much focus on developing strategy (mentioned 15 times across all 10 adverts) and there was mention of meeting ‘goals’ (four mentions) and ‘targets’ (three mentions), which might help to explain the relatively low survival rate of many leaders (if goals and targets are not met on time).
Teacher leadership
There was little direct reference to leadership of the teachers, or being a leader who teaches. In fact, the term ‘teachers’ was sparsely used (seven times), compared to ‘students’ (35 times) and ‘staff’ (29 times) whilst ‘Parents’ was used 16 times and ‘Board’ appeared 10 times. This seems to show that the Director has more of a ‘customer’ and ‘owner’ (parents) focus rather than a teaching/faculty one. Muijs and Harris (2007: 126) had concluded that teacher leadership requires a ‘culture of trust and collaboration’, and we find that School A wants the Director to: Foster a collaborative and collegial work environment that promotes teamwork and professional growth. It is said (Bush and Glover, 2003: 566) that ‘teacher leadership is more likely to succeed where it is fostered and nurtured by heads and senior leaders’, and the word ‘nurture’ appeared only one in the 10 adverts whilst ‘foster’ was used by two schools. School G wanted the Director to: lead, supervise and develop teachers and staff to ensure highest possible standards of effective teaching and learning and pastoral care and support for students. Otherwise, there was no mention of the Director leading or directing professional development for teachers. As noted by Javadi et al. (2017), this is seemingly the responsibility of middle management, termed ‘Principals’ or ‘Coordinators’.
System leadership
Bush and Glover (2003: 562) discuss the model which offers ‘opportunities for heads to learn from one another, through visits, networks or clusters’ whilst noting that system leadership involves leaders ‘extending their remit beyond their own school’. There was no indication of this aspect in any of the 10 adverts, and none mentioned the Director being expecting to cooperate or visit other schools or similar networks. This supports the challenging isolation aspect noted by Gross (2024). Instead, there is much evidence that the school is intended to operate and exist a as a stand-alone ‘community’, revealing how the traditional international school operates as an autonomous unit within a loosely associated association of similar schools. At the same time, there is an indication that the wider school community is seen as a ‘system’ requiring contact and coordination. School E asks states that: The Director will provide leadership to the school and the community, supporting and inspiring each level of leadership in its own defined area. The term ‘each level’ seems to support the notion that the traditional international school is a ‘loosely linked system’ (Hawkins and James, 2018) and supports Caffyn's (2018) notion that the schools suffer numerous complex (often invisible) boundaries that need managing.
There is much focus on the need to create and maintain a strong sense of community, and the word ‘community’ appeared 20 times. School C wants the Director to: Support community related activities in the promotion of the ‘life of the school’. School C also asks that the Director: Establish strong relationships with students, parents, and the broader community, fostering open communication and collaboration. The term ‘establish’ here implies that a sense of continuity is needed. Presumably, the ‘broader community’ would include the local community as well as key stakeholders such as Embassies and major multinational agencies (i.e. the ‘international community’). The term ‘stakeholders’ was used four times. School G asks that: the next Director is expected to deeply immerse in the life of the school and its different constituencies. This seems similar to a ‘collegial model’ (Zulkifly et al., 2023), yet also makes the leader prone to energy and time-draining ‘vampirisim’ activity.
Transformational leadership
This model ‘assumes that the central focus of leadership ought to be the commitments and capacities of organisational members’ (Bush and Glover, 2003: 577). The term ‘transform’ was not used, nor was ‘motivate’. This model ‘focuses primarily on the process by which leaders seek to influence school outcomes’ (Bush and Glover, 2003: 577), yet only one school asks that the Director ‘design’ or ‘create’ something, whilst the term ‘innovate’ was used by only two schools. Instead, the emphasis is on ‘continue’ (10 mentions, across all adverts) and ‘maintain’ (six mentions).
Moral leadership and authentic leadership
We expected this to be a major theme in the adverts given the schools exhibit a high degree of mission-driven values and ethos. The moral leadership model places an ‘emphasis on integrity’ and assumes that the Director ought to be focusing on delivering in practice their own set of ‘values, beliefs and ethics’ (Bush and Glover, 2014: 559). Bates’ (1995) speech had argued the need to ‘recognize the ideological and value-laden nature of leadership’. The term ‘ethical’ appeared once, and the term ‘moral’ was never used. School E: ‘The Director will be expected to establish a culture of encouragement, high aspirations, ethical behavior, risk taking, a love of learning and a belief in continuous improvement that is shared by staff and pupils and will promote the ideals of awareness resulting in action’. The term ‘integrity’ appeared once (in School F): ‘Candidates must possess integrity as well as excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills’.
There is considerable focus on the need to be ‘responsible’ (mentioned 14 times) whilst keeping the school ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ (both terms mentioned five times). School F talk about: Providing a safe, secure, and inclusive environment for all members of the school community including students, staff, teachers and parents. The term ‘safe and secure’ was used by four schools, perhaps a reflection of the precarious geographical and political location of many (several of the 10 in this study were in the Middle East, and North Africa). However, again, this might be argued to be more of a managerial focus.
The term ‘inspire’ appeared three times, and School J wanted to see ‘inspirational leadership’. The term ‘mentoring’ was mentioned twice, and School C wanted the Director to: Provide guidance, feedback and mentoring in support of the professional development of the School staff. The term ‘vision’ appeared twice, and School D asks wants to see the Director: Working with all stakeholders the Director will provide vision, leadership and direction for the school and ensure that it is managed and organized to meet its aims and targets. As one might expect from schools that are heavily mission driven, the word ‘mission’ was used by seven schools such as School G calling for the: the implementation of the school's mission, core values, and strategic plan.
Distributed leadership
The general literature would imply this to be an important aspect, especially over the past 15 years. Bush and Glover (2003: 561) state that distributed leadership is the model that ‘provides the most significant contemporary example of the nature of theory in educational leadership’. The term ‘lead’ appeared 12 times. There is no mention of the term ‘share’, ‘distribute’ or ‘delegate’, implying that none had any co-principalship model in place (note: none of the schools are in China, where the model tends to operate). Only two schools mentioned the need to ‘empower’ others; one school made reference to empowering the Senior Leadership Team, and School J expects the Director to: Lead through influence and persuasion to empower teams to consistently focus on improving the quality of opportunities made available to support student learning. Seven schools mentioned the need to work with the Senior Leadership/Management Team. The word ‘assign’ was used twice. School B asks that that the Director: May from time to time, assign additional duties and responsibilities to the Head of School, provided however, that all additional duties and responsibilities assigned, shall be consistent with those normally associated with the position of Head of School. Overall, this fits with Al Haj Sleiman's (2021) findings, and Gross (2024), that the Director is quite isolated within the school.
Contingent leadership
One might expect this final model to be a major one. However, it appeared to be less important than the distributed model. Bush and Glover (2003: 564) offer contingent leadership as an alternative model ‘recognising the diverse nature of school contexts, and the advantages of adapting leadership styles to the particular situation’. However, the action verb ‘adapt’ did not directly appear in the adverts, despite Fisher's (2021) study finding that in practice many do adapt practice especially to meet cultural norms which again leads us to think that this might act as a serious form of tension and challenging duality. School H said that: The Director should be innovative, flexible and excited to live in, and lead a school in a close community and build on the good work that the school has done in the last few years’ but this was the only appearance of the word ‘flexible’. School F required the Director to: Make decisions and recommendations regarding salaries, probation reviews, contract extensions, and terminations of teachers and other staff as required. This was the only time that the term ‘as required’ appeared. The term ‘risk-taking’ appeared twice, and School B (in the Middle East) said the Director ‘shall have the specific authority, right and responsibility’ to organise and reorganise the staff ‘in a manner which best serves the school’. Only two schools said the Director could ‘make decisions’, with School A saying they could: Make decisions and recommendations regarding salaries, probation reviews, contract extensions, and terminations of teachers and other staff as required. School C used the word ‘control’ when saying that: You will control and review the budgets for educational resources, staff development and student activities within the School’. School I (in North Africa) acknowledged that the Director would need to: Navigate a challenging economic environment in Country X that impacts the operations, budget, and enrollment of the school.
Discussion
A lot of emphasis was placed on maintaining the course and stability of the school as led by the previous leaders. In the case of traditional international schools, this might be people who had served less than four years as Director, and the incoming candidate might be expected to serve a similar time period. Continuity and development rather than change or progress and innovation, is a key theme. Table 1 had shown that ‘maintain’ and ‘continue’ are major expected actions. The highest scoring verb, ‘develop’, implies the Director is expected to build upon previous actions. Further, the high frequency of ‘support’ and ‘ensure’ implies that the Director is expected to meet the strategic goals of the Board (who appoints them), and also implies a high degree of instructional leadership is expected. The very high degree of emphasis on managerial leadership is further shown by the high frequency of ‘operate’ and ‘monitor’.
No advert had mentioned the need to inject new life into the school, implying that the authentic/heroic leadership role required by ‘turnaround’ (Bush, 2020) leadership is not needed. At the same time, the lack of focus on the leader asserting their own values or designing, transforming, and demonstrating action undermines any notion of transformational leadership.
The lack of appreciation for moral leadership might seem contradictory in the context of the ‘traditional’ type of international school where the values of the IB such as ‘risk taking’ and ‘caring’ (two of the 10 attributes of the IB Learner Profile: IBLP) might be expected to be valued and seen as important. However, this might help to explain the contradiction sensed by Author when finding there is ‘no operationalisation of the IBLP in leadership’.
Instead, we can see from the adverts a focus on managerial leadership. This focus on ‘old style’ leadership (Hallinger, 1992) is surprisingly paradoxical as we might expect traditional international schools, operating in continuously changing social/economic/cultural/legislative environments to encourage a more pragmatic or spontaneous style of leadership, equipped for contingency and situational events. The emerging literature on international schools does seem to assume that contingency leadership is at work in practice.
Overall, we find that senior leaders in traditional international schools are expected to maintain stability, as managers or administrators ‘steering the ship’ rather than leaders. Bush and Glover (2014: 565) argue has managerial leadership has ‘been discredited and dismissed as limited and technicist, but it is an essential component of successful leadership, ensuring the implementation of the school's vision and strategy’, and we might speculate that this is important for traditional international schools, where institutional legitimacy can be questioned and the Director has been set targets within a short-term strategy (again, this issue needs investigation).
Morrison (2018: 511) had called in EMAL journal for a move by leaders in international schools to move beyond keeping the status-quo, and instead ‘implement appropriate and effective change’. However, we can see from the job adverts that such a change in leadership focus is not expected or wanted. Here, we can identify another tension, and ‘duality’ (previously raised in EMAL by Keller, 2015), between the Director perhaps wanting, and needing, to implement change and innovation or contingency action but be expected by the Board (mainly comprising of parents) to maintain consistency and continuity, that is, steering the school on course, towards the set goals and targets. We believe this duality tension may be a major factor in the low life expectancy of senior leaders, per school.
A number of action verbs related to the nine leadership models are noticeably absent. There was no direct mention of the terms ‘teach’, ‘share’, ‘distribute’ or ‘delegate’. The very low importance given to distributed leadership is perhaps the most surprising aspect given the ‘loosely linked’ aspect that is acknowledged to be a problem area and its importance in the general literature. The absence of the verb ‘motivate’ was also very significant, pointing to a low priority in terms of transformational leadership. Further, the low importance given to contingency leadership is surprising given the ‘evolving’ nature of the schools, and the geo-political context of some schools.
Conclusions
Although Bush (2018a: 3) asserts that ‘leadership approaches have to be adapted to fit the needs and expectations of the specific school context’, we find from job adverts that a very similar ‘pattern’ of managerial leadership seems to exist, irrespective of national or cultural setting, with regard to the expected action of the senior leader of the autonomous ‘traditional’ type of international school. This is line with an earlier study a decade ago by Roberts and Mancuso (2014), revealing a consistency of expectations despite the shift towards distributed leadership evidenced in other educational contexts. This is perhaps the major contribution of our input and was not seemingly assumed by the emergent literature about leadership in international schools, which as we have noted is quite limited in its scope of inquiry (especially in a geo-political sense).
Our intervention is meant to be ‘illuminative’ (Gunter, 2005), looking at the situation and critically asking ‘what does it mean?’ Whilst arguing that the intended goals of school leadership models are vague, James et al. (2020: 618) offer a more robust and precise definition when they argue the need to reconceptualise and redefine educational leadership practice as ‘legitimate interaction in an educational institution intended to enhance engagement with the institutional primary task’. The job adverts strongly imply that this involves, at a leadership level, maintaining the long-term survival of the institution through ensuring continuity of practice and policy. In other words, the Director is expected to ‘steer the ship’ during their relatively short three to four year tenure as a ‘steward’, rather than instigate any major change (or ‘rock the boat’) as a ‘leader’. Indeed, school H asks that the Director ‘build on the good work that the school has done in the last few years’. Two adverts wanted a Director who will ‘maintain the status and reputation’ of the school. A further two adverts sought a Director that will ‘preserve and honour the history of the school’. All ten schools wanted someone who will ‘continue’ things, whilst only three wanted someone who might ‘progress’ it. The word ‘create’ appeared once only, implying the leader is meant to build on previous activity. There seems very little scope here for transformational, authentic, contingency, or distributed leadership. At the same time, we arguably need to be careful not to be too critical, as this emphasis on continuity and stewardship is vital for the long-term survival of the school. We note, again, that some schools are now 100 years old.
Talking about scepticism about high-powered, well-paid Heads in schools in England, Crawford (2012) had noted a shift from solo ‘heroic’ to shared, distributed model of leadership. Our analysis, admittedly from a relatively small sample of adverts from a single (yet major) recruitment agency, seems to show that the well-established traditional international school has not undergone a similar shift. However, in this instance the leader is not so much ‘heroic’ as ‘isolated’ and acting as ‘monitor’ and ‘overseer’.
This study clearly has some limitations. It comprises 10 job adverts found on one website. Adverts from schools in China were absent. Although Search Associates is a major, well-established source of Directors in traditional international schools, and used by previous researchers a decade ago (Roberts and Mancuso, 2014), a number of newer sources exist such as tes.com which has a large number of job adverts for the commercially driven sector of international schooling. The findings would benefit from interviews with both the recruitment agency (who draw up the advert, for the school) and the applicants, in situ, about how the adverts fit with the every-day expectations and practice. In particular, the potential tension or dilemma between practicing managerial leadership (which seems to be the dominant model anticipated and expected) and contingency leadership (which seems to have a much lower importance, on paper, yet might be adopted in practice) would be a useful avenue for further in-depth investigation, adding to Keller's (2015) findings.
More research is clearly required into the actual leadership models adopted rather than those expected or anticipated. At present, there seem to be few self-reported studies. A further study is needed into leadership models in the rapidly growing commercially driven non-traditional schools belonging to branded groups, where we might expect a stronger expectation of system-leadership. Also, a further investigation into the co-principalship models in China might help to advise schools on better forms of distributed leadership. Lastly, our review of the current literature discovered a major gap in knowledge and research investigation. We could find numerous papers about leadership of international schools in Malaysia, yet only one specifically about China, or Dubai, the two largest school markets.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
