Studying school leadership as a reciprocal process: Conceptual, methodological, and policy implications

Over the past 25 years, most researchers adopted either a direct or mediated effects perspective towards understanding the impact of leadership. Regardless of which approach was used, however, researchers have framed leadership as the “origin” of changes in staff and student performance. As far back as 1970 Bridges asserted that this assumption distorts our view of leadership in organizations, and as recently as 1988 Pitner proposed a reciprocal model of leadership effects. Only recently, however, have scholars begun to explore the potential of reciprocal models in empirical studies. The proposed paper explores the conceptual, methodological and policy implications of adopting a reciprocal effects perspective on the study of leadership and school improvement.