Theories of distributed leadership suggest that organizational learning and change results not from the efforts of a single individual, but rather from a network of people working within their broader systems. Team empowering leadership enhances human resources development of the organization to promote the sharing of knowledge that is necessary for change. In this study, we study transformational and distributed leadership team that have been linked to improving working conditions and students’ learning in high-needs schools. Specifically, we highlight a team-based intervention where positive organizational improvements were made to academically struggling schools, and then qualitatively examined the associated processes to understand what enabled the occurrence of those positive changes. We find that the team structure allowed for the clarification of expectations, enhancement of communication, and improvement of educator working conditions through professional development support and distribution of leadership responsibility, which ultimately resulted in improvement in school culture and performance.

This text aims to analyze the conditionalities of the New Public Management for the educational assessment policy in Brazil and the deepening of educational inequality with the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Certainly, within the trajectory of educational policies, Brazil has a clear relationship with the conservative way in which the State and society were shaped. In the current scenario of the New Public Management, the new educational policy dictates an economic logic in the pedagogical factor, which uses business management methods for results, transforming it as a solution to measure the quality of teaching, for which it uses evaluation mechanisms. Aspects linked to the New Public Management such as efficiency, efficacy and effectiveness permeate the rationality of educational policy and, consequently, of the evaluative logic. Indeed, the centrality of the assessment conditioned the logic of curriculum standardization. These curriculum guidance indicators denote training based on skills and abilities that contribute to training that meets market demands.

In the research, it was aimed to learn the leadership expectations of secondary school students in the context of school principals. In this context, focus group interviews were conducted with sixteen students studying at different grade levels in the research conducted with a phenomenological design, and the data obtained were subjected to content analysis. When the findings were examined, it was seen that the leadership expectations of the students from the school principals were shaped in four sub-themes (behavior, values, skills and abilities, and characteristics). According to the results obtained, students from school principals about leadership; In the behavior sub-theme, they expect the most discipline and valuing ideas, they expect the most fairness, tolerance and understanding in the values sub-theme, they expect the most professional expertise in the skills and abilities sub-theme, and they expect the most compassion and sincerity in the characteristics sub-theme. The results show that the expectations of the students, which are the basic elements of the education process, should be taken into account by the school leaders.

Women’s work has been acknowledged as an important tool towards effective leadership and economic development in Nigeria and Africa in general. It is important therefore, to accept their presence and encourage the active role they play in the labour force which at the long run impacts the economy positively knowing full well that they make up noticeable portion of the world’s population. This study evaluated the contribution of job autonomy, workload and home-work conflict to the job satisfaction of employed women in universities in Ogun State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was used to draw 200 women through multi-stage sampling technique. Standardized questionnaires were used to obtain responses from respondents. Four hypotheses postulated were analyzed using correlation matrices and multiple regression analysis and the level of significance was at 0.05 level. Findings show that job autonomy, workload, and home-work conflict jointly contributed to job satisfaction with 10.1% variance (Adj. R2 = .101) while workload predicted female employees job satisfaction the most. It was concluded that university management should introduce flexibility in work schedules and restructure job descriptions to allow female employees have more autonomy so as to reduce the effect of home-work conflict and pressure associated with workload.

A National Science Foundation-funded Mathematics and Science Partnership program, Leadership for Educators: Academy for Driving Economic Revitalization in Science (LEADERS), aimed to develop science teacher leaders who would influence the quality of science teaching in their respective schools. To fulfill a need to evaluate leadership abilities of teachers within LEADERS, a Teacher Leadership Instrument was developed based on our previous work. This paper examines the performance of teachers as outlined in the Teacher Leader Model (TLM) Standards following their enrollment in three teacher leadership courses aligned with these Standards. The study employed a qualitative approach to analyze peer professional development sessions provided by teacher leaders, and to rate leadership behaviours and practices. Results indicate that 31 of the 37 functions were exhibited by the teacher leaders, with most observations occurring at a developing level. Behaviours related to effective presentation and facilitation were observed most frequently, but the teacher leaders also incorporated research-based practices, information about assessments, and links to the community in their sessions. Further, these behaviours linked back to the intended outcomes of the three leadership courses. The results demonstrate one manner in which teacher leaders perform the functions of the TLM Standards in the context of professional development sessions.

A professional development that is often mandated is exclusionary, less motivating, and provides teachers with little or no improvement in their professional practice as well as student achievement. This necessitates a fundamental change in policy from prescribing professional development to addressing teachers’ self-identified felt needs. Hitherto, teachers are generally disenfranchised from specifying their felt needs for development, thus they feel uninterested, or enthusiastic to attend professional development programs that are prescribed for them by school leaders. When they do or are compelled to attend, they tend to be less attentive and are often indulged in reading newspapers, grading students’ test papers, texting, playing video games, or simply doing something unrelated to the professional development. This practice stifles teachers’ professional growth and student learning, hence it must not be allowed to continue unabated. Through a qualitative case study research design, using survey, interviews, and focus groups, this research brought to the fore, the debilitating effects of the current practice. Analysis of data yielded four major themes: choice, motivation, effectiveness, and satisfaction. The study proposed a paradigm shift in policy from mandating to granting teachers the autonomy to identify their own real or felt needs for professional development. Implications for practice, leadership, policy, and further research were also discussed.