The journey into leadership : listening to the educational leader’s voice in Gozo

Abstract

The educational system in the Maltese islands is undergoing a number of reforms. For these reforms to be successfully implemented, a radical paradigm shift in local educational leadership is called for. This not only means that educational leaders need to balance who they are with what the educational system requires from them but they also have to deal with the pressures of an insular society such as the one in the Maltese islands. With the current educational discourse pointing towards performativity and accountability to provide quality education for all, educational leadership can be quite a challenging role. In fact, educational leaders are constantly asked to challenge their notions of leadership and think outside the box. Current local leadership discusses the leadership skills necessary to bring about the required reform. Several documents have been written to propose suggestions on how to improve educational leadership and what the educational leader should do. Unfortunately, who the leader really is as a person is being ignored. The question here is: What impact does the experience of school leadership have on the school leader? This study will try to analyse the transition into educational leadership of six educational leaders in Gozo and it will also try to understand how the school leadership experience impacts a leader’s personality and everyday life if at all, what adaptation processes a leader needs to undergo to fit into his role and if this adaptation process involves fitting in into certain expected stereotypes.