Building and leading learning cultures

Successful leaders make a difference to school outcomes indirectly rather than directly (Day and Leithwood; 2007; Hallinger and Heck, 1999). In other words, successful leaders exert a positive influence on student learning and lives by working through and with others in the school (Southworth, 2004). They do this through shaping the form, meaning and substance of key school conditions that have a direct and verifiable influence on learning within a particular context. Leithwood (2007) calls these conditions mediating variables. He points out that “while there is a considerable body of evidence about classroom and school conditions more or less directly influencing student learning, much less is known about how principals successfully influence these conditions” (p. 8). Copyright © 2010 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.