| The study interviewed six head teachers from the United Kingdom, and six principals from the United States, to see if leaders behaved differently in secondary schools that were in a competitive environment than those that were in traditional public school environment. I determined that leaders in competitive environments generally approached their jobs differently from those in non-competitive educational environments, and that they generally led their schools by creating strong cultures or by using the specific roles and positions in the organization to meet well-understood goals. Leaders of schools in non-competitive environments tended to operate within a human relations frame of management, seeking to meet the personal and individual needs of employees and seeking a quiet environment.; However, I also found that the competitive versus non-competitive environment was not the sole determinant of leadership style or approach. School heads or principals who were able to operate as structural or symbolic leaders were those who commanded four key resources: power, authority, autonomy, and financial resources. That is, it was not simply the freedom from bureaucratic constraints that allowed a different leadership style; it was the presence of ample human and fiscal resources. The schools involved were independent Foundation and Voluntary-aided (UK) and charter schools (US), comprehensive district or local authority run schools, and Roman Catholic diocesan schools (US). The research involved site visits to each school to fully appreciate and comprehend each school's setting and environment. In-depth interviews were conducted at the schools, along with tours of the schools, and observation of leadership practices as school heads interacted with others in the organization. Before and after the interview visits, I also collected organizational artifacts: reports, documents, web postings, school rankings, and news reports.; Field notes and artifacts were analyzed by adapting an organizational framing scheme developed by Bolman and Deal (1997), which consisted of the structural, human resource, symbolic, and political frames as the cognitive structures that leaders used. I found that the heads and principals utilized three of the four leadership frames---structural, human resource, and symbolic---that cut across the national identity schemes of schools. None of them appeared to operate within the political frame. Schools were also analyzed by governance type and by country. The environment of the school appeared to be more associated with leadership frame than whether the school was in the United States or the United Kingdom. |
