Abstract:

School leadership is one of the current topics in today's schools since it brings with it a series of benefits for the improvement of the educational practices. Previous studies have explored leadership styles within the educational communities, however, one of the needs that currently exists is the lack of knowledge about leadership theory and practices among those leading educational institutions. The objective of this research is to learn about the perceptions of school leadership held by public school leaders in Colombia. The study was developed from a quantitative perspective, with a hypothetical-deductive process and a numerical approach associated with the explanatory understanding of reality from the theoretical foundation as a fundamental element of the research. We relied on the interpretative paradigm to understand the meaning of the perceptions of the audiences consulted. In addition, we used the social critical paradigm in relation to leadership from participants’ day to day activities. For this purpose, the multifactorial leadership questionnaire was applied to a group of school leaders. The study consisted of three stages: the first stage a literature review, in the second stage the questionnaire was administered and data collected, and the third stage consisted of data analysis. The sample was established intentionally by convenience, therefore, it is non-probabilistic. The sample consisted of teaching managers from public educational institutions in different parts of the country, for a total of 200 teaching managers (principals and coordinators). Forty percent of participants were women and 60% were men. Of these, 20% work in rural educational institutions and 80% in urban settings. 45% of the sample were school principals, 55% were academic coordinators. All participants have an undergraduate degree, 90% have postgraduate training, 60% said they had training in educational leadership. Preliminary results show that, although it is a current topic, there is a lack of knowledge about leadership. Therefore, there is no dynamization and internalization of leadership concepts in the educational communities, which affects the perception that teachers have about the managers in educational leadership issues. This shows that teaching managers make decisions according to the jurisprudence, lacking decision-making autonomy as leaders of educational institutions. Nonetheless, it appears there is a tendency of school leaders to seek training in leadership and management.

Finally, it is concluded the importance of generating a training proposal in relation to educational leadership either from the initial training programs offered in the faculties of education, with a view to the need to train new leaders that respond to current needs or through the teacher professionalization programs offered in the country through the secretaries of education. In addition, it is important to highlight the role of leadership practices in supporting new teachers not only with their day to day teaching duties but in the acquisition of leadership skills.

Keywords:

leadership, school managers, training school.