5th iNet International Conference, 26 28 November 2008

System leaders are those headteachers who are willing to shoulder system leadership roles; who care about and work for the success of other schools as well as their own. They stand in contrast to the competitive ethic of headship so prevalent in the nineties. It is these educators who, by their own efforts and commitment, are beginning to transform the nature of leadership and educational improvement. 

In my recent book, Every school a great school, I advanced the following simple proposition:

'If our goal is "every school a great school" then policy and practice has to focus on system improvement. This means that a school head has to be almost as concerned about the success of other schools as he or she is about his or her own school. Sustained improvement of schools is not possible unless the whole system is moving forward.'

Moral purpose

System leadership is imbued with moral purpose. Without that, there would not be the passion to proceed or the encouragement for others to follow. It appears that system leaders express their moral purpose through:

• Measuring their success in terms of improving student learning and increasing achievement, and striving to both raise the bar and narrow the gap(s).
• Being fundamentally committed to the improvement of teaching and learning. They engage deeply with the organisation of teaching, learning, curriculum and assessment in order to ensure that learning is personalised for all their students.
• Developing their schools as personal and professional learning communities, with relationships built across and beyond each school to provide a range of learning experiences and professional development opportunities.
• Striving for equity and inclusion through acting on context and culture. This is not just about eradicating poverty, as important as that is; it is also about giving communities a sense of worth and empowerment.
• Realising in a deep way that the classroom, school and system levels all impact on each other. Crucially, they understand that in order to change the larger system you have to engage with it in a meaningful way.

Although this degree of clarity is not necessarily obvious in the behaviour and practice of every headteacher, these aspirations are increasingly becoming part of the conventional wisdom of the best of our educational leaders. 

A variety of roles

A variety of system leader roles consistent with such a moral purpose have emerged. These include:

• Develop and lead a successful educational improvement partnership across local communities to support welfare and potential
• Choose to lead and improve a school in extremely challenging circumstances
• Partner another school facing difficulties and improve it. This category includes executive heads and leaders of more informal improvement arrangements
• Act as curriculum and pedagogic innovators who develop and then transfer best practice across the system
• Work as change agents or expert leaders (eg, in England, as a National leader of education, School improvement partner, or Consultant leader)

These roles could be divided into formal roles, developed through national programmes and with clear protocols, and informal roles, locally developed and far more fluid, adhoc and organic. The formal and informal roles hold a very significant potential to effect systemic educational improvement, and the programmes run by iNet are designed to develop both of these types of role.

Professor David Hopkins
HSBC iNet Chair of International Leadership
October 2007

Related links

• Realising the potential of system leadership (paper by David Hopkins)
• System leadership series - workshops with David Hopkins
• Co-constructing system leadership event information (including presentations)
• System leaders in the global age publication
• Leadership publications
• Essential questions for the future school publication
• More about Professor David Hopkins
• Professor Hopkins' new book, Every school a great school