Abstract:

The aim of this conceptual paper is to research educational leadership from the perspective of leadership theories. The research objective is pertinent as social, economic, environmental, and technological changes as well as internationalization of education are creating new requirement for educational organizations and educational leaders. Educational leaders play an important role while bearing the responsibility of school development and students´ learning outcome. To develop school organization and guarantee good educational outcome, educational leaders must have resources, competence, access to newest knowledge and, most importantly, educational leaders need to implement relevant leadership theories to guide them in their educational leadership practice and to help them to meet the challenges and opportunities emerging from the educational landscape. Moreover, today´s educational leaders are expected to follow ethical and moral principles and the Agenda2030. Within the scope of this paper, full range leadership theories as well as newer leadership approaches are addressed. The focus lies on transformational, transactional, authentic, ethical and sustainable leadership theories. The paper is grounded on a review of previous research in the fields of leadership and educational leadership. The results indicate that owing to the lack of specific educational leadership theories, educational leaders tend to implement leadership theories generated and applied in business organizations. Of the full range leadership theories transformational leadership theory is widely applied by educational leaders, and of the newer leadership approaches sustainable leadership theory seems to be gaining ground, probably owing to the influence of the Agenda2030. While the results of this conceptual paper lack empirical evidence, there is need to conduct empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative, on the implementation of leadership theories by educational leaders. Importantly, such empirical research would also contribute to creation of specific educational leadership theories.

Keywords:

Leadership, educational leadership, leadership theories.