Asiyath, Mohamed Didi and Sullivan, Terence J and Ueyama, Takeyuki
(2015)
DISTRIBUTED LEADER DEVELOPMENT AND THE MORAL
IMPERATIVE FOR COMMUNAL ACTION REFLECTION
LEARNING.
PROCEEDINGS 3rd REGIONAL CONFERENCE ON EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT.
pp. 216-231.
Abstract
School leaders, like all people, continually change as a fact of life, as a result of their
personal and professional experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore
the process of workplace school leader learning through professional development,
its pre-requisites, and what continues to drive school leaders to want to learn. The
ultimate aim was to develop and implement a sustained effective strategy for
workplace leader development. A qualitative phenomenographic approach was used
to illicit personal workplace experiences of growth as a leader from 15 school leader
informants. The results of the study showed that leaders and followers in leadership
relationships change when they; 1) visualise their learning and the learning of others
within their relationships; 2) discern variations in multiple aspects of experiences; 3)
connect existing knowledge with new knowledge; 4) accept and share responsibility
for behaviour as a group; and 5) become communally committed to improvement as a
group moral imperative. Learning theories such as action reflection learning
approaches, variation theory and complex theory were enhanced by understanding
leadership as a group phenomenon and so taking a community of practice perspective
whereby the motivation for being a leader emerges from the community as a moral
imperative to create benefits for all. This conceptualisation forced the researcher to
reconceptualise the process as interactive reflective learning focused directly on
expanding distributed leadership throughout organisations functioning as learning
communities.
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