International Handbook of Leadership for Learning || Building Leadership Capacity: The Norwegian Approach

619T. Townsend and J. MacBeath (eds.), International Handbook of Leadership for Learning, Springer International Handbooks of Education 25,DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1350-5_35, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Introduction: School Leadership Preparation in the Context of Norway

Until the early 1990s, no formal education for school leaders was offered by Norwegian university colleges and universities. However, since the early 1970s national and regional authorities have encouraged in-service training. In the period from 1980 to 2000, such efforts were supported by broad national in-service programmes for school leadership. During that period, the dominant teacher unions strongly con-tested the need for formal, university-based preparation programmes for school leaders. According to them, earlier experience as a teacher was a sufficient and a substantial qualification condition for a position as principal. Furthermore, the unions argued for keeping this option of a career path for teachers (Tjeldvoll et al. 2005; Møller and Schratz 2008). At the start of the new millennium, however, the situation changed completely, and now the unions were arguing for formal education pro-grammes in leadership and management. In addition, several universities and col-leges began to offer master programmes incorporating educational leadership.

This change of view is related to the role of transnational policy-making agencies and the impact of international assessment systems (e.g., PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS1). Over the last decades educational policy and reforms in the public sector in general have raised expectations of schools, especially concerning schools’ output, and princi-pals are challenged to respond to these concerns. PISA findings have received huge attention in Norway because of the relatively low international ranking seen in relation to high financial investment in education. Performance measurement and accoun-tability are now in the forefront of educational policy (Elstad 2008; Møller 2009).

J. Møller (*) and E. Ottesen Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Chapter 35Building Leadership Capacity: The Norwegian Approach

Jorunn Møller and Eli Ottesen

1 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

620 J. Møller and E. Ottesen

New national evaluation procedures have been introduced to produce data as to the level of student achievement. While teachers long have been trusted to do a good job, other stakeholders now want to define educational quality and ask for more external regulation of teachers’ work. New strategies for reinventing government by estab-lishing New Public Management (NPM) both at the central and the municipal level have emerged. It is argued that introducing New Public Management has been motivated by concerns about reducing disparities in educational outcomes across different social groups. Therefore it is argued, strengthening of state responsibility in terms of monitoring offers an instrument for efficient service production, governed by a performance-oriented culture with a focus on results and efficiency (Olsen 2002). Both arguments are closely connected to a practice of holding schools accountable for outcomes which meet the predefined criteria, and the reason why leadership has become a main focus in education policy recently. As such, one may say that Norwegian education policy is changing (Tjeldvoll 2008).

Local municipalities and counties have played, and still play, a strong role in school governance. Leadership responsibility at municipal and county level is shared between professional administrators and elected politicians. Through this linkage, education is connected to broader community affairs. Today municipalities are portrayed as ‘the owners’ of the majority of schools; they finance their schools and they employ teachers. They also play a key role in providing in-service training for teachers and school leaders. In most municipalities teachers still enjoy considerable trust and autonomy, and in practice relationships are not very hierarchical. A more recent feature, as a consequence of the restructuring of municipal governing of schools, is that many principals today coordinate various functions that earlier were taken care of at municipal level. This is a new arrangement recommended by the OECD, described as ‘system leadership’, but it has both ‘gains and strains’ (Hopkins 2007; Pont et al. 2008). The advantage is that the principals distribute their leadership energies, experiences and knowledge between their own schools and other stakeholders. In Norway one might ask whether this move has meant increased responsibility combined with decreased authority in a context in which there are often insufficient resources. One might also ask if the implementation of New Public Management at municipal level has resulted in less time and attention for providing leadership for improved teaching and learning.

At present Norway does not have a mandatory requirement for any leadership qualification, but influenced by the international OECD project Improving School Leadership, the Norwegian Minister of Education and Research launched a national education programme for newly appointed school principals in 2009. Through this programme, the authorities want to make their expectations about principals’ roles and responsibilities more explicit. The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training has developed a framework and set out the objectives and priorities for the programme. It took as its point of departure the challenges facing the schools. Five main themes that identify key competencies for principals, specified in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, were outlined. The overall aims are to develop a deep understanding of the leadership role in education; to develop confidence in the role as educational leader; and to develop courage and strength in leadership.

62135 Building Leadership Capacity: The Norwegian Approach

In 2009 universities and university colleges were invited to send in a bid, and so far four higher education institutions have been accepted as providers.

This chapter aims to consider how leadership development and preparation is con-ceptualised and contextualised in the new national education programme for newly appointed school principals in Norway. The starting point for our analysis is that edu-cational leadership is ultimately concerned with learning, and our theoretical frame is informed by a review of a number of studies which focus on the relationship between leadership and student learning, and by Michael Fullan’s (2001) framework for think-ing about and leading complex change. Fullan’s framework represents a convergence of theories about leadership, and it consists of five components of leadership which correspond to independent but mutual reinforcing forces for positive change (Fullan’s 2001, p. 3). As the empirical basis for this article we have selected two preparation programmes which have been granted a status as a national leadership programme in Norway, and which also demonstrates various ways of understanding leadership for school improvement and student learning. We will explore differences and similarities between these two and discuss implications of possible different definitions and prac-tices. We will, in particular, discuss the differing epistemological foundations of the two different approaches to the learning of school leadership.

School Leadership and Student Learning

The concept of leadership is closely related to a family of terms such as authority, influence and power (Gronn 2002). It implies that leadership involves a careful interplay of knowledge and action, and an awareness of conditions, relations and change. Learning-focused leadership is not limited to the domain of student learning. It also includes the capacity building necessary for professionals in the school, and represents a form of organisational learning that can feed into the context for student learning (Knapp et al. 2003; MacBeath et al. 2009).

Currently there is great interest in the links between leadership and student learning and outcomes, in particular ways in which principals can influence student performance. The reformers’ belief in the capacity of school principals to make a difference to student outcomes is supported by qualitative research on the impact of leadership on successful schools (Day and Leithwood 2007). Based on a com-prehensive review of the literature on successful school leadership, Leithwood and Riehl (2005) argued that almost all successful leaders drew on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices, and these practices included (a) setting direction, (b) developing people, (c) redesigning the organisation, and (d) managing the instruc-tional program. Leadership was defined as ‘those persons, occupying various roles in the school, who work with others to provide direction and who exert influence on persons and things in order to achieve the school’s goals’ (Leithwood and Riehl 2005, p. 9). Furthermore, it was emphasised that school leaders improved teaching and learning indirectly, and most powerfully, through their influence on staff moti-vation, commitment and working conditions.


Based on an analysis of findings from 27 published studies of the relationship between leadership and student outcomes, Robinson et al. (2008) argued that the more leaders focus their relationships, their work and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning, the greater their influence is on student out-comes. However, increased leadership of this type could be counterproductive if it was exercised without reference to knowledge about which particular qualities of teacher professional development have an effect on the students of the participating teachers. The purpose of this study was to examine the relative impact of different types of leadership on students’ academic and non-academic outcomes. The meta-analysis revealed strong average effects for a leadership dimension involving promoting and participating in teacher learning and development, and moderate effects for the dimensions concerned with goal setting and planning, coordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum.

Drawing from findings from a large and extensive study of contemporary leader-ship in England to date, Day et al. (2009) confirmed the model of successful leadership practices identified in Leithwood and Riehl’s (2005) literature review, but also went beyond this. The study focused on schools that have significantly raised pupil attainment levels over a 3-year period (2003–2005). While they could not identify a single model of the practice of effective leadership, it was possible to identify a common repertoire of broad educational values, personal and interper-sonal qualities, competencies, decision-making processes and a range of strategic actions which all the effective principals in the study possessed and used. A key argument was that school leaders were ‘successful in improving pupil outcomes through who they are – their values, virtues dispositions, attributes and competences – the strategies they use, and the specific combination and timely implementation and management of these strategies in response to the unique contexts in which they work’ (Day et al. 2009, p. 195). It was the combination of strategies based upon their diagnoses and understanding of individuals, the needs of schools at different phases of development, and national policy imperatives which were influential in promoting improved student outcomes.

As demonstrated above, school leadership is claimed to be of great importance for student achievement, and several countries including Norway have initiated leadership programmes to improve leadership skills of school principals. However, current research has little to offer about how leadership training may foster a pro-ductive learning environment. An important step is thus to identify how preparation programmes are conceptualised and contextualised, and the Norwegian case may serve as an example.

A Framework for Thinking About Leadership and Leading in a Culture of Change

There is a growing critique of existing leadership research which has an exagger-ated view of human agency and cause–effect relations. This is probably the rea-son why a perspective on leadership as distributed, or shared, is gaining terrain.


Many studies now claim that if schools are to develop their organisational capacity, both teachers and students need to be encouraged to exercise leadership (Furman and Starratt 2002; Spillane 2006).

However, a preparation programme for school leaders will nevertheless need to qualify and enable individuals to develop their leadership capacities. In turn, this requires a conceptual template for understanding professional and personal career trajectories and a framework for thinking about leadership which can serve as a basis for the construction of preparation and education programmes for school leaders. After all, the core activity in a school is student learning, and the starting point for our analysis is that educational leadership is ultimately concerned with learning. Leadership and learning are understood as mutually embedded; a frame which pictures both leading and learning as activities and, as such, offers an open invita-tion to lead and to learn as the task or the circumstance demands (MacBeath et al. 2009). In addition, we have in our analysis also chosen to apply Fullan’s (2001) framework for thinking about leadership. He draws on current ideas and theories on the topic of effective leadership, and his main argument is that everyone can improve their leadership by focusing on a small number of key dimensions. It is about ‘developing a new mind-set about the leader’s responsibility to himself or herself and to those with whom he or she works.’ (Fullan’s 2001, p. 2). The framework consists of five core aspects of leadership; i.e. attending to a broader moral purpose which is concerned with direction and results; understanding change which includes perspectives on the complexities of the change process; cultivating relationships with diverse people and groups to avoid easy consensus; knowledge creation and sharing to honour the complexity; and coherence making to extract valuable patterns which are worthwhile to retain. In addition, some personal characteristics are included in this framework. These are labelled energy, enthusiasm and hopefulness, and there is a reciprocal relationship between the two sets.

A National Programme for the Preparation and Development of School Leaders

In a White Paper titled ‘Quality in schools’ (Report No. 31 2007/2008), the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Education and Research stated that they would estab-lish educational programmes for principals. Their aim was to make the political expectations and demands of leadership in schools explicit by regulating the contents of the programmes. The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training subse-quently constructed a tender defining the frames and content, and higher education institutions were invited to submit bids.

In the tender, the Directorate formulated requirements for the proposed pro-grammes. The 30-credit Master’s level programmes were to deal with current chal-lenges, and the target group was to be newly appointed principals. While an institution of higher education had to be responsible, programmes offered ought to be a joint venture between at least two institutions, one of which was not to be a teacher education institution. In a supplement to the tender, these expectations and


demands were further elaborated. The Directorate identified four main areas for a principal’s competence: (1) The students’ learning outcomes and learning environ-ment, (2) governing and administration, (3) cooperation and organisational devel-opment, counselling of teachers, and (4) development and change. The programmes, it was said, should address the roles of leaders, enabling participating principals to develop into democratic, confident and courageous leaders in their schools. Furthermore, providers were expected to collaborate closely with local educational authorities in delivering the programme.

Four bids for leadership preparation programmes were accepted: The University of Bergen (UiB), the University of Oslo (UiO), The Norwegian School of Management (BI) and The Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (AFF). We have analysed all four programmes with a focus on their perspectives regarding leadership, their choice of content, the proposed organisa-tion and work methods. This preliminary analysis shows that all four programmes attended to the framework presented in the tender. In particular, the content (themes to be worked with) met the Directorate’s requirements. Next, all four aimed to make use of the principals’ practical experiences, for example, in coursework and written assignments, with an emphasis on the importance of facilitating the principals’ understanding and development of their roles as leaders. Despite this, the four pro-grammes offer distinct responses to the charted framework. There are differences in their perspectives on leadership and in the way they understand the principal’s role, and as a consequence, in the ways in which they frame the content areas. As an example we have chosen the BI and the UiB programmes for closer analysis. The rationale for our selection is that these two institutions represent distinctive views of leadership for learning, and they are also grounded in different research traditions. As such they may exemplify different ways of interpreting the national framework. BI is well recognised for its research on leadership and management in and for private and public sectors, while UiB is anchored in educational theories and highlights research in education and learning as a key component in providing the ability to understand and address the emerging challenges of our knowledge-based society. Such theoretical underpinnings have laid the groundwork for more recent interdisciplinary research on leadership of educational institutions, and knowledge management within both private and public sector institutions at UiB with partners.

Two Norwegian Programmes for Leadership Preparation and Training

The programme from The Norwegian School of Management (BI) draws on their experience as providers of leadership education and training, in their general management courses as well as in courses for educational leaders. BI stands out strongly as an able and responsible provider, and the different content areas are strengthened through their research activities and expertise of their partners.


In addition, BI emphasises extensive cooperation with municipalities in developing and delivering education and training for school leaders, where the main task for principals is to improve students’ outcomes. To cope with this challenge, principals need to adopt an integrated approach in their work, and need not be too narrowly focused on educational leadership.

Thus, in BI’s perspective on school leadership, general leadership skills are accentuated because principals need to master a range of such skills. On the one hand, they are educational leaders and administrators, and on the other they are employers and managers responsible for the organisation’s results. Variation in efficiency can (partly) be explained by personality and conduct, while the pro-gramme aims to develop visionary and relational leaders with the skills that are needed to develop an organisation capable of delivering education for all in accor-dance with national and local policies.

The central subject areas in BI’s programme are: economics of education, school effectiveness and efficiency, governance and change, leadership and resource management, learning and learning theories. In addition to the four thematic courses, the programme is to offer leadership training in communication and the management of power and influence. The programme has a strong focus on mana-gerial aspects of school leadership, and on the principal’s role as executive of gov-erning policies aiming to strengthen output. Democracy is seen as an aspect of this: it means to work loyally within the governing system, and to be able to delegate power and authority when appropriate. The programme highlights the need for a critical stance in the development of new leadership roles as a consequence of society’s changing expectations. Legal and management aspects of leadership are central, but so are student learning (input and outcomes) and organisational learning.

In contrast, in the programme offered by The University of Bergen (UiB), student learning is centre stage, and in particular, the challenge of planning and carrying out teaching to better meet the needs of the individual student. To reach the ambi-tious goals of the recent reform, it is stated, principals will need focus on develop-ing schools as a learning organisations and to facilitate the development of strong teacher professionalism. Learning to use assessment tools and developing an under-standing of inclusive education and learning as a core activity are important aspects of their leadership capacity building. The programme bears evidence of being a joint application from five universities and university colleges in the Western region of Norway, in addition to cooperation with a private consultancy business.

In their perspective on school leadership, the connection between theory and practice is emphasised. Skills and knowledge necessary for a school leader are described as being both about leadership in general, but also about knowledge and skills necessary to realise the mandate and purpose of schooling. In addition dialogue, cooperation, the management of tensions, conflicts and emotions are described as areas crucial to school leadership skills, while values and dispositions such as equity, trust, respect and tolerance are also put into focus.

The central subject areas in UiB’s programme are: Students’ learning out-comes and learning environment; governance and administration; cooperation and development of the organisation; development and change; and the leadership role.


The overall aims and understandings described in the perspective on school leadership are more blurred within the subject areas. However, aspects associated with the school as a learning organisation, accountability and measurements connected to learning outcomes and the quality of teaching are prominent, even though the approaches and theories vary across subject areas.

Discussion

Perspective on Leadership

The Norwegian School of Management (BI) sums up their understanding of leadership in schools in two short sections. First, they state that schools are complex organisa-tions. This, they argue, is a result of increased influence of interest groups within and around the school. Thus, the principal is in a squeeze between multitudes of expec-tations, some related to issues concerning teaching and learning, and others related to general management issues. In particular, principals at present are held account-able for student outcomes. Due to the increased complexity of leadership in schools, there are no ‘quick fixes’ or easy roads to effective leadership.

BI refers to studies (these are not referenced) about leadership and efficiency, and argues that around 50% of the variation in leadership efficiency can be explained by the leaders’ personality and actions. Thus, developmental, visionary and relation-oriented leadership has been seen to yield stable results. This may suggest that people in the organisation need to develop a sense of competency, self-efficacy and belonging. It is argued that what is really needed is time for deep thought and reflection in order to understand the differing aspects of leadership.

It is the focus on learning outcomes that is most prominent in BI’s programme, and the main competence for a school leader is described as the ability to choose ways in which the school needs to work with the core issues of learning. For this to affect the whole organisation, the leader needs to influence school staff by alternating between measures that are organisational and pedagogical.

Turning to the University of Bergen (UiB), they see leadership for learning, both among students and staff as the key challenge for principals. To work with this challenge, principals first of all need to develop competence in the use of evaluation and information about outcomes in order to plan and promote teaching and learning, and second, to develop inclusivity so as to avoid marginalisation and social inequality. Thus, it is the school’s core activity, teaching and learning, that is placed centre stage in their programme. Important issues to be addressed are, for example, prin-cipals’ endeavours to develop schools as learning organisations, how to strengthen teacher professionalism, how to develop fruitful dialogues between actors at different levels and between schools and their local environment.

UiB acknowledges that leadership in schools should be studied along two dimensions. The first is general leadership theory, which can help principals understand


and develop their practice. The second, leadership in schools, is closely related to the formal mission and mandate of schools, the content of schooling, methods and forms of practice. Thus, principals need knowledge about the work of teachers and students in order to deal with educational and pedagogic issues. In their programme, UiB seeks to integrate these two aspects in order to develop capacity for action, based on what are considered as unique dimensions of school leadership. According to UiB, capacity for school leadership builds on:

an outward focus, i.e. knowledge about national policy, global issues•an inward focus, i.e. how to lead and ensure sustainable learning and develop-•ment in the school organisationa comprehensive view of educational knowledge to enable the principal to act as •instructional leader and mentorknowledge about how to develop as a leader continuously•

In sum, BI applies leadership concepts developed in other organisational contexts, for example, knowledge management and change leadership based on empirical studies of corporations and educational organisations, while UiB to a larger extent draws on research based on studies of leadership in educational organisations.

Understanding Leadership for Change

We can identify both similarities and differences when we compare the BI and the UiB programmes. Both underscore the fact that schools are complex organisations and that there are no quick fixes to school improvement. Both also attend closely to the framework outlined by the National Directorate of Education and Training. The main difference between them is related to which coordinating principle seems most prominent; a top-down understanding of leadership or a bottom-up perspective. BI is concerned with principals being held accountable for student outcomes; developing effective skills for working on this core issue is therefore highlighted. This is basically a top-down strategy for implementation of educational policy where national and municipal authorities define the premises. The principal is held accountable for implementing the policy.

UiB has a stronger focus on leadership for learning, both among students and among staff; teaching and learning in a multicultural environment is placed centre stage in their programme. They emphasise educational processes, and leadership as distributed in the organisation is an implicit aspect, along with a commitment to bottom-up processes for school improvement. Development and change is one of four thematic areas addressed in UiB’s programme. Their point of departure is that principals need to understand the complexity of educational institutions, a com-plexity that makes processes of development and change especially challenging. Change in schools is mandated through educational reforms, inducing the school leader to deal with more or less explicit expectations. Thus, to be able to interpret and understand policies and expectations is important. However, it is seen as equally


important to establish a culture and organisational structure that will accommodate change, always keeping in mind the improved learning of pupils. Such structures need to build on and exploit cooperation and dialogue with actors within and outside of the school.

Another distinction is that while UiB highlights some unique dimensions of school leadership as key aspects in the programme and adds to it a more generalised view of leadership, for BI a generalised view of leadership has to be in the fore-ground, with unique dimensions of leading the school as an organisation playing a less prominent role.

Attending to the School’s Moral Purpose

The BI programme intends to help school leaders build a robust understanding of the school’s role and mandate, and to become committed to delivering just, mean-ingful and high-quality education. This resembles Fullan’s description of a moral purpose. However, there is a crucial difference. While we understand Fullan’s con-cept of moral purpose in a wide sense, as a state of attentiveness to the lives and well being of people as well as the outcomes, BI’s programme puts outcomes first. Their view is that by being concerned about school results and learning how to use results for improvement, the moral purpose of just and meaningful education will be attended to.

In BI’s programme much space is devoted to issues related to change. Reforms in the public sectors are compared and discussed in order to build an understanding of what it means for leadership in schools when reforms more and more resemble other public sector reforms. Furthermore they focus on the relationships between levels, in particular between schools and local education authorities. By improving school leaders’ understanding of the school system, they expect them to be better equipped to implement national and local policies and to influence the processes which have led to the formulation of such policies. A central issue related to change is how to initiate and follow up change processes. BI puts emphasis on change for efficiency – with an explicit focus on results. In their programme, BI proposes to train the school leaders to better understand the economy of education so that they are able to develop strategies for change that will improve results. Such strategies need to include clear aims and requirements, and to ensure that the staff’s and leader’s freedom of action are employed in a way that enhances outcomes.

In UiB’s programme quality work is an issue of uttermost priority that needs to be addressed at all levels in the educational system. While the programme has a strong focus on outcomes and learning environments, as well as on the school’s mission and mandate, they argue that it is what goes on in classrooms that consti-tute the main points of interest. Thus, the moral purpose of school leadership is to work with pupils, staff and other stakeholders to improve the quality of teaching. This involves attending to outcomes, while at the same time keeping focus on learning processes in classrooms and in the organisation. Fullan argues that moral purpose


both is about ends and means (Fullan 2001, p. 13). Similarly, UiB’s programme frames quality as a question of both establishing fruitful dialogue between actors at all levels, and about creating organisational structures that will support such dialogue.

Cultivating Relationship and Knowledge Sharing

Building capacity for change in schools includes aspects of individual development and of establishing organisational support structures that accommodate continually developing relationships (Hopkins 2007). Fullan (2001, p. 44) sees cultural change as the main issue for change in education. In BI’s programme cultural change is discussed within a Human Resource framework. The idea is to highlight HR as an important strategic area in the organisation, to make sure that HR and the organisa-tion’s overall strategy pull in the same direction, and to develop the students’ under-standing of human resource management as a crucial competence in order to exploit fully the organisation’s human capital to achieve good results.

In addition, HR is seen as the entry point for the development of ‘human capital improvement’, involvement and social climate. This touches on Fullan’s dimension of relationship building. However, BI’s programme does not explicitly deal with interpersonal relationships, building professional learning communities, or paying attention to the interactions between actors in the organisation. While Fullan focuses on relationships as mutual, arguing that an important aspect of leadership is to listen to the diverse voices of members of the organisation, BI is more con-cerned about the leader learning to know him or herself as a leader in order to gain a better position from which to influence others. Thus, through leadership training, the programme aims to help the school leaders to develop their relational and com-municative skills, to be able to achieve goals and make decisions in cooperation with others. To understand how trust may be established and sustained is, according to BI, of existential significance for leadership. Good communicative skills are a prerequisite for trust, and trust is necessary in order to exert power in democratic organisations.

In the module in BI’s programme called ‘Learning and Learning Theory’, a central aim is to develop the students’ competence in analysing and interpreting data about their school. Only when a school leader has this competence, will he or she be able to make use of methods that include the staff in the critical interpretation of results, and promote legitimate needs for improvement. The collective processes are not as Fullan advocates, primarily a means for knowledge creation and sharing, but a tool for the principal to build support for change. In their programme descrip-tion, BI repeatedly uses the notions ‘the school’s learning environment’ and ‘the school’s learning practice’. In its wider sense, the notions may be interpreted as pertaining to both staff and pupils’ learning. By knowing about learning and learning theory, school leaders develop capacity to lead learning processes in a way that make processes challenging and democratic, bringing forth the best in the staff and


avoiding destructive processes. However, such processes need to focus on improving outcomes. While a principal cannot personally act as a coach for every teacher, he or she must learn how to choose the appropriate educational direction for the school, and how to design the organisation and make relevant priorities to support the staff. To do this, school leaders need also to be knowledgeable about the ways in which the staff members work with the core learning processes.

Throughout the UiB programme, there is a focus on dialogue, cooperation and collective learning processes. It adopts a network perspective on organisations, where knowledge and competence are seen as distributed among actors, thus mak-ing positive relationships essential. Such relationships have a potential to release creativity and productive learning processes at all levels in the organisation. However, creativity also means being able to take risks, and school leaders need to support audacious efforts directed at improvement, and arrange for open and col-lective evaluations to determine what works. UiB’s programme has a strong focus on the school leader’s responsibility to continuously build professional competence in the school’s staff. He or she needs to build organisational structures to accom-modate the staff’s need for formal further education, and for informal in-service training and collaboration. In addition, UiB also emphasises the need for school leaders to function as mentors for their staff in their daily work.

As indicated above, UiB’s programme has a strong focus on learning, and a specific focus on collective dimensions. The diversity of a network organisation can be fruitful, but also be extremely challenging. Thus, knowledge creation and shar-ing inevitably brings controversies and opposing views to the surface. Coaching and feedback on leadership skills can help build the confidence needed to tackle differences. A striking characteristic of the UiB programme is that it displays confi-dence in leaders and staff throughout. It is through dialogues and collective learning processes that controversies are to be settled, ambitions raised and responsible practices established. The common (or moral) purpose, to work together to develop and sustain practices and environment that are conducive to pupils’ learning is what constitutes the integrative momentum in UiB’s programme. Coherence is estab-lished by placing educational work with subject pedagogic issues centre stage.

How Are the Leadership Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions to be Developed?

BI describes their approach to education as ‘bi-lingual’ (p. 21). This gives further emphasis to their programme as both research-based and practical, this is, academi-cally robust, and of practical use for leaders in schools. They use problem-based learning as one key approach, in which they work with authentic and relevant prac-tical problems in lectures, plenary discussions and in groups. During the course, groups of principals are to work on a project assignment where they use theory to reflect, analyse, synthesise and assess practical issues taken from their own practice. Through this experience-based approach, theory is to be integrated with experience.


Furthermore, BI expects school leaders to write an essay designed to help them in their personal reflection on experience and to build insight and understanding. Theoretical themes that are explored in lectures and discussions are then trans-formed into practical training exercises.

UiB also uses a practice- and problem-based approach to learning and develop-ment. At the start of the programme, each school leader is expected to design a development project to be worked on in their schools. Throughout the programme, participants work with problems and issues of relevance in their projects, and the programme’s literature and lectures, as well as feedback through coaching and group discussions, is intended to inform their practical work. In addition, school leaders are expected to work with written texts in order to stimulate reflection, develop argumentative power, and, as a consequence, advance their capacity for action. The programme is organised in monthly 2-day gatherings over a period one and half years. In each seminar, activities will alternate between research-based lectures, dialogues for reflection, and practical training. Moreover, course members are to be organised in network groups to share and reflect on experiences.

As shown above, there are more similarities than differences when it comes to the design of learning experiences for the participants. Both institutions claim that they have a research-based approach and offer a robust academic programme. Both include and build on participants’ experiences as vital resources, and both focus on reflection on action. The differences are more implicit than explicit and relate to choice of literature and references. While UiB puts educational theories at the fore-front, BI to a larger degree refers to leadership literature which claims to cover all kinds of organisations.

Summing Up the Main Differences

The most striking difference across these two programmes is the role of outcomes as a driving force for development. In BI’s programme successful leadership is seen as reliant on evidence of outcomes or effects. Leadership is defined chiefly in terms of its outcomes, and efforts to understand relationships between leadership and the effects of leadership easily end up as circular arguments. This makes knowledge about communication and motivation a unilateral tool for the leader. The three modules and the leadership training element in BI’s programme converge on a single purpose: to develop the principals’ capacity to lead their organisations towards improved student outcomes. Coherence making (Fullan 2001) is organised around this purpose, and is to be achieved by building a wide and general knowl-edge base: understanding the school’s role and mandate in society, its role and function within a governing system, the school’s contribution to development in society, social as well as economic, the school as an organisation, and school lead-ers’ relationships to the people in the organisation (BI’s programme description, p. 7). However, the knowledge that school leaders develop in the programme is action oriented. Their ambition is to supply principals with conceptual and practical


tools that will help them lead and develop the organisation and stimulate and develop staff in alignment with national policies, with the student’s improved learning outcomes as the aim.

UiB’s programme, however, offers to a larger extent a framework or a tool for thinking about and analysing leadership. In their framework leadership refers to activities tied to the core work of the organisation, teaching and learning. Leadership is seen as being about influencing motivation, knowledge, emotion, or the practices of other organisational members concerning the core work of the school. Dialogue, teacher professionalism and developing a culture for change are foregrounded. Developing inclusive schools, in order to avoid marginalisation and social inequality, plays a dominant role in their description of the moral purpose of the school.

UiB strongly emphasises a collective approach. Through the programme, the principal, it is argued, should develop capacity to facilitate learning processes that build on the distributed expertise of the staff, and are directed towards improving student’s learning. BI’s programme, on the other hand, has its focus on the principals’ role in implementing national and local policies. In this approach, leadership for learning is a question of strategically managing human resources so that policy requirements can be attained.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article was to explore how leadership development and prepara-tion is conceptualised and contextualised in the national education programme for newly appointed school principals in Norway. A textual analysis of two different preparatory programmes, which both offer responses to the charted national frame-work, has been carried out.

We have identified some significant differences across providers. First, one insti-tution underlines some unique dimensions of school leadership as key aspects in the programme and adds on a more generalised view of leadership. At the other institu-tion, however, it is the other way around. Second, while one emphasises educational processes and the need for encouraging bottom-up approaches to school improve-ment, the other adopts a more top-down perspective. Third, the most striking difference is the emphasis placed on outcomes. One institution frames information about student outcomes as a tool for dialogue within the organisation, and to pro-mote a collective approach to setting a direction while the other uses outcomes as a tool for school principals for setting the direction, and leadership as a means for strategically managing human resources in order to meet policy requirements. Fourth, while one programme foregrounds educational theories, the other refers primarily to research on leadership in both private and public organisations. As such the knowledge base differs between the two. BI draws upon theories of knowledge management and change leadership based on empirical studies of corporations. It is a corporate way of thinking about learning management, and successful man-agement in a market will implement decisions in a way that produces learning among staff as a foundation for being innovative (Tjeldvoll 2008). At the University


of Bergen they draw upon theories and empirical studies of children’s learning and socialisation, curriculum studies, classroom studies, and the school as an organi-sation. Both programmes emphasise the need for critical reflection on national educational policy. However, the epistemological foundation for critique differs between the two.

Despite these differences, which are anchored in discrepant epistemological foun-dations, both programmes have been selected to implement a national policy for leadership education and training in Norway. In order to understand how this is pos-sible, it is important to trace historical and cultural patterns of social development within the Norwegian context. As mentioned in the introduction, local municipalities and counties play a strong role in school governance, and it is their responsibility to provide in-service training for teachers and school leaders. The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities, KS, has long argued against a manda-tory leadership programme. According to this association, the school owner, that is, the municipalities, should be responsible for leadership development. Their argument is that in co-operation with their school leaders, they are better qualified to evaluate the needs and priorities for capacity building. Municipalities and counties do not wish intervention by the State in the form of mandatory requirements. Instead, they want to encourage the formation of a local network in which schools and school leaders are able to learn from one another. ‘Best practice’ is held as a basic principle, and it is the schools’ or the schools owner’s perspective, not a centrally developed model by experts and researchers which is preferred. Reflection on experiences or sharing of knowledge is their accepted mode of leadership development (cf. Møller and Schratz 2008). Nevertheless, KS has chosen to team up with the government in constructing the national programme and it has, as already mentioned, been made a requirement that higher education institutions are to establish partnerships or collaborate closely with local educational authorities in the design of the programmes.

On the one hand, this means that the municipalities have welcomed a national programme for leadership education and training funded by the State. On the other hand, they retain their right to choose among programmes offered by higher educa-tion institutions. As such there are tensions and contradictions in the way leadership preparation is conceptualised and in judgements on what would be the most prom-ising leadership development.

In addition, it should be underlined that education policy documents in general more often than not will include both tensions and ambiguities. Voices of different stakeholders and political parties are included in order to negotiate and obtain broad consensus about national educational policy. It is probably the many small, local communities that give Norwegian society its distinctive character, and as part of the Norwegian legacy, educational policy documents have a long history of balancing national and municipal governing. As such, it is possible to understand why pro-grammes anchored in discrepant epistemological foundations have been selected to implement a national policy for leadership education and training in Norway. An implication of possible different definitions and practices is that through funding diverse programmes the Norwegian Directorate of Education and Training supports and provides the local municipalities with the responsibility and authority to make the choices, and so local democracy is retained.


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International Handbook of Leadership for Learning || Building Leadership Capacity: The Norwegian Approach