Keywords

Introduction

In 2010, the Finnish National Agency for Education’s (EDUFI) – earlier the National Board of Education – asked the Institute of Educational Leadership in the University of Jyväskylä to conduct a meta-analysis and synthesis of the doctoral theses published so far in Finland on school leadership and school development (Alava et al., 2012; see also Risku & Kanervio, 2011). The aim was to synthetise the theoretical aspects but also to locate empirical findings that practicing principals could utilise in their everyday work at schools. One key finding in the report was the fundamental changes taking place in educational leadership: the increase of knowledge in leadership, the changing role of principals, and the changes in the operational environment and in the municipalities. Several studies also focused on the principal him-/herself.

Another key finding in the report was the evolvement of broad pedagogical leadership. According to the analysed doctoral studies 2000–2010, it was a new central approach in educational leadership. The report summarised that pedagogical leadership consisted of four interrelated processes, each of which needed to be led: building the curriculum, developing the school culture, creating the school vision and defining the core mission of the school. In addition to these, three key leadership competencies were identified: ethical leadership, leading people in change and shared leadership.

Since the publication of the report (Alava et al., 2012), the debate and theory development of pedagogical leadership has taken several significant steps in Finland. The book edited by Holappa et al. (2012) included several significant papers investigating pedagogical leadership and its relationship with educational leadership (Alava et al., 2021; Lahtero & Laasonen, 2021; Smeds-Nylund & Autio, 2021).

This chapter continues this development focusing on pedagogical leadership as it is conceived in Finland in the light of both the new studies in Finland, and internationally.

Conceptualisation of Pedagogical Leadership

In this chapter, we will base the initial conceptualisation of pedagogical leadership on the articles by Risku and Alava (2021) on educational leadership and by Alava et al. (2021) on pedagogical leadership in the system-level change.

Based on the former article, we will refer with educational leadership to the phenomenon of leadership in the field of education. Hence, it is a broad concept comprising of everything in the field of education that one can connect with leadership. In this conceptualisation, we consider pedagogical leadership as one area of educational leadership, amongst several others.

Following the latter article, we will investigate pedagogical leadership as the area of educational leadership focusing on leading the well-being, learning and development of educational organisations and their members. As the reader will learn, pedagogical leadership has not always been the hot topic in Finland it is today. Hence, we will investigate the historical evolvement of Finnish educational leadership locating the first moments of the concept of pedagogical leadership and follow the evolvement of it till present time.

Internationally, we will position pedagogical leadership in relation to the various theories that have been reforming how we conceive educational leadership in Finland. These, according to our investigation, have influenced the evolvement of Finnish pedagogical leadership more than many of the international educational leadership theories focusing on the same areas as pedagogical leadership, for example, curriculum leadership (and management), instructional leadership, knowledge management and leadership for learning.

Methodology

To describe and analyse the historical evolvement of school leadership in Finland towards the present understanding of pedagogical leadership, qualitative research synthesis methods were used. This first phase of our study utilised systematic reviews, thematic analyses and narrative syntheses. In the second phase, we synthetised the results of the first phase with existing theoretical literature to theorise towards a present-day perspective on Finnish pedagogical leadership. The core of the data comprised previous school leadership studies. Additional data sources were various policy documents and national curriculum publications. Table 7.1 lists those researchers who have addressed and analysed the work of school principals towards pedagogical leadership.

Table 7.1 Chronological list of researchers in Finland who have addressed, analysed and increased understanding of school principal’s leadership efforts towards broad pedagogical leadership
Full size table

As described, the first phase of our study followed the systematic literature review approach. The adjective ‘systematic’ points to the selection of studies for inclusion in the review and is contrasted with ‘haphazard study selection procedures’ or even ‘arbitrary study selection procedures’. In this approach, relevance criteria must be specified, and the available literature must be searched exhaustively (Hammersley, 2001). We aimed at selecting those studies that focused on school leadership and school development and produced results that increased the knowledge about the development of pedagogical leadership in Finland. Our analyses revealed several key constructs and discussion themes relevant for this study.

Linked to the goal of our study, the need for research synthesis could only be realised when the theory building was cumulatively connecting past and future research. The systematic review, in contrast to a traditional review includes a clear statement of the purpose of the review, a comprehensive search and the retrieval of relevant research, explicit selection criteria, critical appraisal of primary studies, and reproducible decisions regarding relevance, selection, and methodological rigor of the primary research (Denyer & Tranfield, 2006).

We used narrative syntheses to support the thematic analyses. Narrative syntheses focus on how studies addressing different aspects of the same phenomenon can be narratively summarised and built up to provide a bigger picture of the phenomenon. Narrative synthesis is largely a process of compiling descriptive data and exemplars from individual studies and building them into a mosaic or map (Hammersley, 2001). Narrative synthesis and summary typically involve the selection, chronicling and ordering of evidence to produce an account of the evidence. Its form may vary from the simple recounting and description of findings through to more interpretive and explicitly reflexive accounts that include commentary and higher levels of abstraction (Dixon-Woods et al., 2005). Our study followed the chronological development of the constructs forming a narrative approach in addition to the themes found.

According to Denyer and Tranfield (2006), narrative approaches are particularly valuable when studies – like ours – include qualitative contributions, which are chosen to provide a strong sense of context. Narrative reviews provide deep and ‘rich’ information and enable the wholeness or integrity of the studies to be maintained, thus preserving the idiosyncratic nature of individual studies.

As seen in many recent studies, the disconnection between academic research and practice is a phenomenon common in many sciences, in educational and social science disciplines especially. To overcome this challenge, an evidence-based approach can be used, which puts synthesised findings from systematic literature reviews at the service of further theory building and experienced professionals. Novel systematic literature review methodologies have been developed to locate, appraise and synthesise existing research evidence to ensure that the outputs are more relevant for theory building, policy and practice (Denyer & Tranfield, 2006).

Historical Development of Pedagogical Leadership in Finland

International educational leadership research literature indicates that school leaders have both been active educational leadership researchers and written a lot on educational leadership. Similarly, also in Finland, the comprehensive education reform established the need to have a broader understanding of leading and managing schools. In the 1970s, principals wrote about leading and managing schools based on their own experiences, for example, Toivonen and Andersson (1976). In the 2000s, principals turned into researchers of their own, like Mäkelä (2007), Raasumaa (2010) and Pulkkinen (2011).

In this historical description, we focus on the development of educational leadership in Finland from it comprising of pure administration into having in its core broad pedagogical leadership. We investigate several writers and researchers defining various themes and domains which have evolved into the present pedagogical leadership.

Initiatives Forgotten

One of the first to promote the role of pedagogical leadership was principal Haahtela (1953), who later became a local educational manager and initiator of the comprehensive education reform. In his article in 1953, he considered the supervision of the school to belong solely to the principal and emphasised the principal’s role in following teachers’ teaching and the one-to-one dialogue based on this supervision. He also saw the importance of team spirit – first aspects of the importance of school culture. In his speech in Alppila High School, he argued that there was a need for a special institute to promote pedagogical issues in Finland – being years ahead of his time (Malinen, 2010). Common to what we today understand with pedagogical leadership, he also emphasised dialogue with teachers on pedagogical issues.

Unfortunately, it took several years before the next concrete steps and initiatives for developing pedagogical leadership emerged. This consisted of the evolvement of the role of the principal from the earlier civil servant into the modern pedagogical leader.

Interest in Teachers’ Work and Guidance, and Also in Students

Haahtela (1953) based his statements with the focus on the overall interest of the school. The 1970 legislation (Basic School Ordinance 443/1970) included these tasks in the official statues stating that principals’ duties were to guide and supervise teaching and education. The same tasks can be found in Toivonen and Andersson’s (1976) research on principals’ experiences of their work. Toivonen and Andersson – maybe for the first time in Finland –identified the role of the principal as a pedagogical leader, as one who creates the schedules, and follows and evaluates teaching and educational outcomes. Research on the role of the principal as a pedagogical leader was continued by Vaherva (1984). He identified similar administrative tasks as previous researchers but also broadened the responsibilities of the principal to include school community development.

Again, the principal’s role as a pedagogical leader was not developed further for a long time in Finland. Instead, there was a long debate about the duality between administrative and pedagogical leadership. Erätuuli and Leino (1992), unlike Vaherva (1984), argued that principals in comprehensive education focused on administrative work leaving all pedagogical issues to teachers. Kurki (1993) claimed that Finnish pedagogical leadership research was based to a great extent on the Anglo-American literature with an emphasis on management. In general, pedagogical leadership was understood narrowly as the practical actions that the leader uses to reach the pedagogical aims and goals in the curriculum. Curriculum had the role of a tool for instruction on several levels: state, municipalities, institutions and students.

Even though the roles, responsibilities and duties of principals have increased, the core role of following, evaluating and guiding teachers’ work has not disappeared. For example, Pulkkinen (2011) in his PhD study on the transferences between leadership in school and sport worlds regarded all administrative tasks important in fostering the goals in the school curriculum.

One of the first researchers to address the inadequacies of pedagogical leadership in practice was Kovalainen (2020). In her PhD study, she could combine her extensive practical experience as a teacher and a school leader to the most recent theory development on pedagogical leadership. As a conclusion, she developed four axioms, discussed later in more detail in this chapter, which both reveal the inadequacies and give guidelines how to fill the gaps in practice.

In her first axiom, Kovalainen (2020) states that the centre of pedagogical leadership consists of learning and of the learner whose learning conditions, growth and welfare are taken care of.

In sum, the basis for Finnish pedagogical leadership is rooted in teachers’ work and students’ learning.

Developing School and Leadership Culture

Haahtela (1953) emphasised taking care of team spirit amongst teachers, thus, being a pioneer in discussing the importance of school culture in Finland. Vaherva (1984) can be seen as a similar pioneer for the concept of the school community. However, it took several years before school culture and community were seen as key elements both in the well-being of everyone in the school and in effecting directly to student learning outcomes in Finland.

The Finnish National Board of Education Aquarium project in 1995–1998 studied change and the implementation and success of pedagogical development in over 300 pedagogical projects in selected schools (Hellström, 2004). Amongst several aspects fostering change, positive school culture was recognised as an important factor and intertwined with several other aspects in developing the school. If not properly developed, it was found to be a major obstacle for school development. The importance of the culture of trust in accomplishing goals was later identified by Kirveskari (2003) in her PhD study.

The National Core Curriculum in 2004 included the role of school culture. It stressed that school culture is an essential element of the learning environment, and thus has a significant role for teaching and student learning. Accordingly, the curriculum obligated school’s educational goals and values to be manifested in the school culture.

During the first two decades of the millennium, the importance of school culture was recognised in several studies. In a study focusing on principal’s identity, Ahonen (2008) identified the importance developing the school culture as a key element in leadership. In her PhD study, Kunnari (2008) studied the operational context of general upper-secondary schools and the historical, cultural and structural factors that steered their day-to-day work. The study showed that the change and renewal of the school structure is a historically and culturally mediated way of thinking and acting of school leaders, thus emphasising their role as pedagogical leaders.

The doctoral work of Raasumaa (2010) was a significant turning point in understanding about the connection of knowledge management and pedagogical leadership in Finland. As a result of his study, he also widened the concept of pedagogical leadership into broad pedagogical leadership. This consisted of leading by learning, competence leadership, self-regulation and dynamic interaction. The dynamic interaction included creating a new innovative learning culture, mutual understanding, a new pedagogical infrastructure and the long-term developing of the school. He argued that collaborative learning and team learning are essential in developing the school’s internal culture.

In her PhD work, Paukkuri (2015) conducted a three-year-long European Union project in four case schools in Germany, Greece, Estonia and Finland. She found out that pedagogical leadership can be the starting point for shared meaning building in practice which, in turn, can lead to more cooperation between school leaders and teachers. She also argued that school leadership needed a deeper analysis of the context and of the individual school cultures. A still more comprehensive investigation into the importance of school culture was given by Lahtero (2011) in his qualitative case study focusing on leadership culture and its subcultures. School culture was defined as a web of meanings by the members of the school community. In a later article, Lahtero and Kuusilehto-Awale (2015) defined broad pedagogical leadership based on technical, human and pedagogical leadership in combination with symbolic leadership turning via a web of meanings into cultural leadership.

As part of renewing leadership culture, shared leadership got more ground in the first decade of the millennium. Several writers considered it linked with pedagogical leadership (Tukiainen, 1999; Mustonen, 2003; Ahonen, 2008; Karikoski, 2009; Nykänen, 2010; Raasumaa, 2010; Alava et al., 2012; Isotalo, 2014). Pedagogical leadership was mentioned and linked to school culture also in the National Core Curriculum of 2014; it stated that the importance of pedagogical and shared leadership is to be emphasised and that it should focus on taking care of the conditions for learning. Kovalainen (2020) emphasises in her third axiom the confidentiality in a school’s operational culture and considers the learning atmosphere of the community to have a significant role in encouraging active information acquisition and action, respecting every member of one’s community, valuing one’s work and providing a positive view of the future.

In sum, starting around 2010, developing school culture has become an essential part of Finnish pedagogical leadership.

Change, Development and Future Orientation

As we argued earlier based on Haahtela (1953), change and development have been identified as the main orientations of Finnish pedagogical leaders. Developing school community was stated also by Vaherva (1984) and later by Helakorpi (2001), who stressed the importance of responding to the challenges in the learning environment. But it was not until the Aquarium project (Hellström, 2004) that pedagogical leadership was considered as the key method for action, way of change and development. One of the first to strongly emphasise future orientation and school visions was Kirveskari (2003), who argued that the earlier understanding of pedagogical leadership was too narrow. Paukkuri (2015) included the importance of developing the school culture, making change possible, in pedagogical leadership, too. In the same avenue, Isotalo (2014) emphasised attaining common goals with mutual visions and strategies. In his theoretical summation, Uljens (2015) as well saw school visions and change processes in the core of pedagogical leadership.

Clearly, as Kovalainen (2020) states in her fourth axiom, pedagogical leadership is leading in change; pedagogical leadership requires constant readiness for change and skills leading people in change. Conscious implementation of change requires careful planning and setting clear goals. Sustainable change requires a commitment and, in most cases, change in the thinking of the community (see Fullan, 2016).

Values and Ethics

Following the inclusion of change, development and future orientation as essential orientations for pedagogical leaders, many researchers in Finland in this millennium have emphasised the role of values and ethics to steer development and future orientation. Kirveskari (2003) emphasised the culture of trust, while Nykänen (2010) highlighted the ethics of care. Paukkuri (2015) stated that the very core in pedagogical leadership is creating a common understanding of school values. Several researchers have also argued for an in-depth dialogue concentrating on education, on the concept of the human being and on the future orientation (Komulainen & Rajakaltio, 2017; Rajakaltio, 2014; Uljens & Nyman, 2013). In this kind of dialogue, a mutual understanding is gained regardless of, and in honouring, different opinions and differences of the participants.

Kovalainen (2020) and Alava et al. (2021) argue that pedagogical leadership is ethical and has its basis on the core values jointly developed and accepted and continuously processed by the members of the school community. The core values of pedagogical leadership are, as also stated in the national core curricula of 2004 and 2014: humanity, Bildung, democracy and equality. The prerequisite to develop school culture is the open, mutual, participative and trust-building communication. Out of these values, equality has been the key guiding principle (Sahlberg, 2002, 2015). Equality relates to gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, conviction, freedom of speech and being handicapped (Uljens & Rajakaltio, 2017).

Towards a Learning Community

During the early years of school leadership, the development of teachers and principals was not eminent. One of the first, who strongly advocated it was Their (1994), who stressed knowledge sharing to increase competencies. She also saw the principal as a co-learner. When the international organisation theory started to develop from organisational learning (Senge, 1990) to learning organisation (Hord, 1997; Tsang, 1997) and beyond, Vulkko (2001) introduced it as a model for school development regarding the principal as a co-learner, as did also Paukkuri (2015). Kirveskari (2003), Taipale (2004), Johnson (2006) and Raasumaa (2010) all emphasised the role of the principal’s pedagogical leadership in the education, learning and participation of teachers.

In 2013, the theme of the learning community was also included in the report commissioned by the National Board of Education (2013). It stressed the learning of the whole school community and the development of the teaching profession per se. In the 2014 National Core Curriculum, the learning community had a central role, and it emphasised its development via dialogue. It stated that the meaning of pedagogical and shared leadership must be emphasised and that school leadership should focus on creating good learning conditions. In a longitudinal study in one municipality in Finland, Alava (2019) argued that if schools were to function as learning communities, they should develop a collaborative culture and network orientation.

Following the development of international organisation theory (Hord, 2003; DuFour, 2004; Morrow, 2010; DuFour & DuFour, 2012; Jäppinen, 2014; Nkengbeza, 2014; Antinluoma et al., 2021) about professional learning communities, Kovalainen (2020) included school as a learning community into her axioms as axiom three: the priorities of the pedagogically led learning community are mutual action, solidarity and dialogue. These are to create common understanding, generate new thinking, foster change, pass on tacit knowledge from one generation to the next, and peer work. All this, in turn, should reduce the culture of doing things alone.

Contextualisation

As we can see from many writers above, there can hardly be any uniform precise definition of pedagogical leadership, even if several writers have tried to do that. On the contrary, pedagogical leadership appears highly contextual, even situational. One of the first to state this was Lonkila (1990), who also emphasised the changes taking place in the external environment. Contextualisation was also seen as a key factor in the studies of Nivala (1999, 2002) on the work of leaders in early childhood institutes. In his study, Pennanen (2006) focused on changes in school leadership and emphasised its contextual nature. To begin with, he argued that temporal and locational contexts are essential because communities and schools had very different numbers of teachers and students. Several schools were being closed, others were being merged with each other and new ones were being built; there was continuous change.

Ahonen (2008) argued that leadership is constructed in a process of social interaction by the members of the school community and is affected by various stakeholders. In different circumstances, leadership is constructed differently. Therefore, she stated, there is no precise place or form of leadership, but leadership is constructed contextually and situationally in processes. In his study about knowledge management functions of principals, Raasumaa (2010), too, recognised that leadership and knowledge management are highly contextual and situational. Paukkuri (2015) argued that leadership practices differ a lot in culturally different schools. Thus, she claimed that shared leadership and pedagogical leadership are culturally bound phenomena. The same conclusion was made by Uljens & Nyman (2015). In fact, Uljens (2002) stated that the adherence of education with culture makes it complex, but that we must live with it.

Leadership in Action

In the Finnish literature, we can locate two rather different avenues of understanding pedagogical leadership. The first is to try to define it distinctively and precise leading into an array of different definitions. This often creates rather broad concepts covering a multitude of principal’s task that various researchers have pointed out to belong to pedagogical leadership. One such example is Mäkelä (2007) who in his autoethnographic study found 43 main categories of principals’ work, which he then combined into five main areas: administration and economics, leading networks, leading personnel and pedagogical leadership. Isotalo (2014) provided a summation of the work of various studies presenting a model of 63 different tasks and responsibilities leading the analyses back to the roles and responsibilities of leaders, which, in turn, could be traced back to Minzberg (1971). These studies have a merit of their own showing how demanding and manifold the principals’ work is.

The other avenue to understand pedagogical leadership can be found following the use of leading different work and development processes in schools. The Aquarium process (Hellström, 2004) reported significant success in principals’ work in leading different processes in pedagogical school development. In their meta-study, Alava et al. (2012) examined the doctoral thesis made in Finland in 2000–2010 and concluded that pedagogical leadership is not a list of tasks, but a network of developmental processes which need to be led: creating school mission, developing strategy and its implementation, developing school culture and determining the curriculum. In addition to these, they defined ethical leadership, leading in change and shared leadership as key leadership competencies. Alava et al. (2021) later stated that the first one these, ethical leadership, should lead analyses of the external environment. Both Alava et al. (2012) and (2021) consider that the goal of pedagogical leadership is the creation of the school as a learning community (see Paananen, 2014).

Linking All Together

In his PhD work, Raasumaa (2010) combined different domains of school leadership. He stated that broad pedagogical leadership is manifested through two main components of leadership – knowledge management (professional development) and leading learning (learning processes, goals, practices and learning theory). He added that these two components are penetrated by two leadership dimensions with several sub-elements. Self-regulation includes self-leadership, knowing the faculty, helping and guiding, sharing information and continuous education. Dynamic interaction includes common understanding, shared leadership, creative school culture, sustainable development, network learning, and the creation of a new pedagogical environment. Linking his findings to international research, he stated that knowledge management presupposes the utilisation of shared leadership. Liusvaara (2014) agreed with Raasumaa, stating that pedagogical leadership is a holistic approach in guiding people, and issues knowledge-utilising communality and innovation.

Furthermore, Raasumaa (2010) stated that teachers are leaders; they lead the learning processes of students. Teacher leadership and pedagogical leadership are based on open and collaborative school culture integrated by shared leadership. These findings by Raasumaa (2010) are in line with the arguments of Frost & Durrant (2002) and Paukkuri (2015), who state that the pedagogical leader works closely with others both as a teacher and a co-learner using rich communication, giving feedback, listening, adjusting, making questions, rewarding, etc. The key to this type of leadership is the shared process of learning.

The Debates of Relevant and Important Constructs in International Leadership Theories

Like the development of general leadership theory, the school and educational leadership also started in the United States. The latter is, however, much younger. Theory building in educational leadership has strong links to transactional, transformational and transformative leadership, which are built on Burns’ 1978 general leadership theory. Therefore, it is essential to understand this theory development also for the evolvement of pedagogical leadership (Kovalainen, 2020).

At the beginning, educational leadership was mostly influenced by transactional leadership which was the dominant theory rooted from classical organisation theory aiming at stability in classical leadership theories. Later it paved the way to other leadership models and theories (Kovalainen, 2020; see Bass, 1985; Mitchell & Tucker, 1992; Shields, 2010; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017), but the various phenotypes of educational leadership at that time were also criticised and several new trends, models and buzzwords were forgotten (Juuti, 2013; Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016). The concept of transformation was quickly introduced in educational leadership (Berkovich, 2016; Shields, 2010; Stewart, 2006) with the first instructional educational leadership models at the beginning of the 1980s (Hallinger, 2003). During the next decades, educational leadership adopted models and theories from general leadership theory developing them to fit educational contexts (Kovalainen, 2020; see Hallinger & Murphy, 1985; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017).

Instructional, charismatic and transformational educational leadership approaches were hierarchical, but unlike transactional theory, favoured change (Kovalainen, 2020; Fullan, 2016). Over the years, also these theories have changed and broadened their scope from individual school leaders into all staff and entire school communities, thus preserving their status amongst more recent theories (Kovalainen, 2020; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017).

At the turn of the millennia and amid radical and unpredictable changes in society, educational leadership faced new challenges. Hence, it was understood as more contextual, situational and complex. It became clear that one leader – or one management team – could no longer successfully cope with the increasing challenges and demanding situations (Gronn, 2000; Gunter et al., 2013; Hallinger 2003; Halttunen, 2016; Harris, 2009; Jäppinen, 2017; Jäppinen & Ciussi, 2016; Jäppinen et al., 2016; Knapp & Hopmann, 2017; Spillane et al., 2004). Sharing leadership became one of the most discussed leadership topics (Bush, 2013; Crawford, 2012; Gunter et al., 2013; Woods & Roberts, 2016), and distributed leadership was a popular research topic (Berkovich, 2018; Berkovich & Bogler, 2020; Mifsud, 2017), leading to a more spontaneous and vertical educational leadership culture (Harris, 2008).

In the changing context, communal, collaborative, goal-oriented and flexible leadership models were considered as solutions to the new challenges in schools (Kovalainen, 2020; see Jäppinen & Ciussi, 2016; Jäppinen et al., 2016). Principal’s work was distributed to assistant principals and management teams; the research literature later emphasised sharing leadership as a means to combine the competencies in the school community, which was materialised in shared responsibility (Kovalainen, 2020).

In his thorough theoretical discussion on the relations between school and society, Uljens (2015) concluded that the theoretical perspectives of pedagogical leadership are as follows.

  1. 1.

    There are different types of pedagogical leadership and pedagogical leadership can be found on various levels.

  2. 2.

    Pedagogical leadership is linked with school leaders’ self-knowledge, expectations and future orientation.

  3. 3.

    Pedagogical leadership is based on overarching policy levels in change processes in schools initiated by pedagogical leaders.

  4. 4.

    Pedagogical leadership is linked with the state of the school, context and societal aspects.

Theorising Pedagogical Leadership

If we look back to the various studies linked to pedagogical leadership and to its theory building presented in this chapter, we can follow how the construct of pedagogical leadership has developed. However, in most of the studies, the impacts and realisation of pedagogical leadership in practice was not addressed in more detail leaving open how and how well it is operationalised and utilised. This dilemma was first noted by Kovalainen (2020), who found that there are several problems of pedagogical leadership in practice.

In her dissertation, Kovalainen (2020) studied the phenomenon of the deficit of pedagogical leadership with the help of four theoretical axioms. The axioms are rooted on the terms ‘pedagogical’ and ‘learning community’ and based on eight international theories and trends of educational leadership that emphasise pedagogy and positive attitude towards change. The theories and trends chosen for Kovalainen’s study included charismatic, transactional, transformational, transformative, instructional, distributed, authentic and collaborative leadership.

The theoretical axioms describing pedagogical leadership are according to Kovalainen (2020) as follows.

  1. 1.

    The core of pedagogical leadership consists of learning and of the learner whose learning conditions, growth and welfare are taken care of.

  2. 2.

    The pedagogical values of pedagogical leadership are humanity, Bildung, democracy and equality.

  3. 3.

    School is a learning community that acts according to the principles of pedagogical values and of the learning community.

  4. 4.

    Pedagogical leadership leads people in change.

Linked with the first axiom, the focus on students and their well-being, learning and development learning and welfare is often considered self-evident in Finland, but this has not always been the case (Alava et al., 2021). According to several international researchers, e.g., Hallinger (1992, 2003), Larsen and Rieckhoff (2014), Marks and Printy (2003), Pietsch and Tulowitzki (2017) and Stewart (2006), schools with the emphasis on transactional, instructional, charismatic or transformational leadership, focused on school development to enhance student learning by influencing and improving the pedagogical and didactical skills of individual teachers. The focus of pedagogical leadership was on the teacher and teaching, similarly to Finland in the 1970s and 1980s.

Transformative leadership, on the other hand, stressed schoolwork for the best of the student, developing the entire school community and even society for this purpose. It emphasised social growth and encouraged students to become active citizens, independent searchers of information and constructive critics (Hewitt et al., 2014; Quantz et al., 1991; Shields, 2010; Weiner, 2003.) Authentic leadership aimed at enhancing both individual’s and society’s well-being (Kovalainen, 2020; see Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). Distributed leadership focused on changing the school and developing learning outcomes by supporting the work of school leaders by sharing leadership (Crawford, 2012; Harris, 2009; Mifsud 2017; Woods & Roberts, 2016), while collaborative leadership reaches for creating something new by creating synergy involving everyone in the school community (Jäppinen 2017; Jäppinen & Ciussi, 2016; Jäppinen et al., 2016, 2018).

The second axiom in Kovalainen’s (2020) theory is linked with values. Because of their common origin, transactional, transformational and transformative educational leadership values correspond to those in Finnish pedagogical leadership, such as responsibility, freedom, equality, honesty and particularly justice which the transformational view linked with the transformation of working places and society (Shields, 2010; van Oord, 2013). Banks et al. (2016) identified four components relevant with Finnish pedagogical leadership in authentic leadership: self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and internalised moral perspective.

Transformative leadership encouraged independent acquisition of knowledge, challenged the status quo, oriented for the future and strove for active democratic action (Hewitt et al., 2014; Quantz et al., 1991; Shields, 2010; van Oord, 2013; Laininen, 2019). This can be seen rooted in Freire’s (1998) notion of Bildung, where educating the entire nation is the means for the well-being of society (see, Shields, 2010).

Related to Kovalainen’s (2020) third axiom, an instructional school leader was a strong and efficient supervisor in the 1980s, giving orders and having the ability to ‘turn the school around’. It was a hierarchical, top-down approach strictly in the hands of the school leader (Hallinger 1992, 2005; Marks & Printy 2003; Stewart 2006). Transformational and charismatic leadership style could also be hierarchical, but it oriented for the bottom-up approach, and it included more interaction (McCarley et al., 2016; Stewart, 2006; Yukl, 1999). Leaders using this style recognise the wishes and needs of school staff. The equality in transformative leadership meant that the individual as a member in the school community was responsible for taking care of the well-being of the community, but the school community was also responsible for the individual (Alava et al., 2021, Hewitt et al., 2014; Quantz et al., 1991; Shields, 2010; van Oord, 2013; Weiner, 2003).

In the recent years, instructional leadership approach has developed towards the approaches of pedagogical leadership presented in this chapter, thus, changing its focus more towards the collaboration of teachers and creating opportunities for teachers’ professional growth and towards creating learning communities. It has also new elements in the leadership for learning approach leading to a new line of study of shared instructional leadership. The five elements in this new approach of instructional leadership are: defining school’s mission, securing the realisation of the curriculum, guiding teaching, following the learning outcomes and enhancing a good learning climate – all being closely linked to teachers’ work (see Boyce & Bowers, 2018; Hallinger, 2011a, 2011b; Hallinger & Heck 2010; Marks & Printy, 2003; Murphy et al., 2007; Shatzer et al., 2014; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). Van Oord (2013) argued that transformative leadership is linked with person-centred learning communities and can be realised only in a true learning community linking the discussion with Kovalainen’s (2020) third axiom.

As Kovalainen (2020) argues in her fourth axiom, international research on transformative leadership shows that it was more change-oriented than the leadership theories mentioned above. Affected by Freire’s pedagogical perspectives, it focused on change on the individual level but also on change on the community and societal levels (Freire, 1998; Shields, 2010; van Oord, 2013). Transformative leadership can thus be a change-prone leadership approach relying on pedagogical methods (Hewitt et al., 2014; Shields, 2010; van Oord, 2013).

In addition to the theoretical foundations that Kovalainen (2020) laid on the construct of pedagogical leadership via her axioms, she also studied how they appear in practice in Finland. She identified several deficits in each of them. Next, we will discuss these deficits and present ways to overcome them. As we have discussed above, pedagogical leadership is contextual and Kovalainen’s findings are from Finland. However, we encourage the international audience to study and analyse their own situations using the four axioms and their possible deficits in their own work.

  1. 1.

    School does not focus on learning and learners.

In this first axiom, the most essential deficit was in the leadership for learning. The focus of the schools was not on the students and their learning but on teaching or on other actors, such as on the education provider (often the municipality). This was not a surprise, because for a long time – even in teacher education – the emphasis has been in teaching, not in learning, in Finland. Linked with international research, teacher-centred education did neither enhance students’ independent work nor activate students. On the contrary, it could passivate students and expose their learning outcomes (Alava et al., 2021, Rajakaltio, 2014; Uljens & Rajakaltio, 2017; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017; van Manen, 1991; Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017.) This was seen as a clear indication of the deficit in the leadership for learning (Kovalainen, 2020).

The traditional culture of working alone limited teachers’ collaboration and thus decreased the support which was intended to support students’ learning paths, growth and well-being aimed to last throughout going to school. On the other hand, the schools preferred to support learning not to compete for advancement. Also, Finland adopted a sophisticated three-level support system for all students that need any kind of help and support. This approach, which has been further developed to meet the individual needs of students, is very different from many other countries in which external standard tests rank schools and teachers.

In sum, in the first axiom, the deficit in pedagogical leadership was in the conservative, even stagnant culture in schools and amongst education providers, the municipalities. To fill this gap, the most essential task is to change and develop the operating and leadership culture both in schools and amongst education providers.

  1. 2.

    The lack of common values slows down the emergence of a collaborative culture.

In the second axiom, the deficit was linked to the unclear or missing values either inside school or outside in the learning environment. Inside the schools, this was met especially when no values discussion had been conducted, or they had been superficial. Linked with the education providers, this problem focused on the morality and honesty of leadership particularly in cases when the cuts in funding were claimed to be a pedagogical solution. Inside the schools, this caused significant decrease in valuing the decision-makers, in change resistance, and in risking meeting agreed goals. The lack in leadership was also recognised in change processes where the reasons or consequences were not properly or not at all informed.

The discussions on schools’ bylaws and rules were regarded as values discussions, even if they comprised only of students’ actions, not those of the entire school. The principals expressed a strong concern for the students to be treated just and fair by the teachers (Kovalainen, 2020).

The core values in pedagogical leadership, identified in Kovalainen’s (2020) research were humanity, Bildung, democracy, equality, fairness and honesty (See Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). The deficit in the values of the external learning environment could be met with a consistent process of interaction which crossed the various administrative levels for education (Alava et al., 2021). Inside the schools, a consistent values discussion leading to mutual values was found to be essential. Both the external and internal communication processes had to be led properly.

  1. 3.

    Pedagogical leadership will not work unless the school leaders exercise their power to organise it.

In the third axiom, the deficit in pedagogical leadership prevented the formation of the pedagogical learning community (Kovalainen, 2020). Leadership can be seen as a process based on the interactions amongst people (Burns, 2003; Starratt, 2007; Uljens & Ylimaki, 2017). In pedagogical leadership, this presupposes the creation and sustaining of a trusting climate amongst school community members (Alava et al., 2021). In addition to the internal connections of the multi-professional community on side the schools, also the schools’ external local, national and international connections and networks – or lack of them – have a great impact on the deficits of pedagogical leadership (Kovalainen, 2020; Tschannen-Moran, 2001).

The findings in Kovalainen’s (2020) study indicated that there were major professional contradictions amongst different teacher groups – particularly between primary and secondary education teachers. These rooted themselves to decisions made several years ago causing, for example, differences in salary systems creating feelings of unfairness. The work of the other teacher groups was not familiar nor valued, which was a major block for collaborative work and mutual responsibility for the learning, behaviours and well-being of students.

The deficits in pedagogical leadership were also the result of the old-fashioned and immature decision-making culture. This problem was increased by the traditional Finnish autonomy of teachers; teachers’ right to choose their own teaching methods and materials. Unfortunately, this autonomy was often misunderstood to mean freedom not to commit oneself to jointly made decisions (Kovalainen, 2020; see Fullan, 2016).

The readiness of the principals to intervene the autonomy problem was decreased by the fact that many of them regarded themselves as teachers, not as real leaders. This was partly because the principals’ work included teaching, and they liked teaching (Kovalainen, 2020; see Fullan, 2016; Rajakaltio, 2014; Taipale, 2005, 2012.) In the same vein, the principals said that they trusted the work morale of the teachers because of the high quality of Finnish teacher education. Therefore, the principals hardly ever followed the teaching practices of the teachers, as is customary in instructional and transformational leadership (Kovalainen, 2020; Komulainen & Rajakaltio, 2017).

Partly, avoiding intervention was also about the principals’ well-being. Their workloads were heavy, their working hours had no limits, and the undone work caused a lot of stress. Working alone and autonomy was also part of their own leadership culture. Sharing their work was regarded difficult, because the overall responsibility for the school was owned by the principal. Principals had a lot of power, but as typical Finnish principals they ‘laid low’ in the use of that power (Alava et al., 2021; Kovalainen, 2020).

To fill the deficit discussed above, the pedagogical leadership in these multi-professional learning communities called for a systematic and assertive way of action, as well as sharing leadership by empowering and creating high morale, trust, honesty, communication, networking, dialogue and negotiation. These arguments are aligned to what Alava (2019) found in his longitudinal study of one municipality in Finland. The role of municipal educational administrators was emphasised, and overall support was seen essential. This led him to re-define leadership: leadership is part of pedagogy; superintendents and educational administrators’ important job is to support principals; principals’ important job is to support teachers; shared leadership can be enforced in many ways, leading through team structures.

Because every school is different and because the deficits are contextually and situationally embedded in human interaction, the means to fill deficits identified for this axiom are to be decided individually in each school applying the findings and guidelines presented above (Alava et al., 2021. Kovalainen, 2020).

  1. 4.

    If there is no commitment to change and the way of thinking in the community does not change, the change will not occur, will only be partial, or there is the risk that the change will not be permanent.

The deficits for the fourth axiom were contextual (Kovalainen, 2020). In addition, the changes did not take place only in the individual schools, but at the same time they took place in the broader system-level change processes.

In Finland, changes in schools were meticulously steered by the central government in the 1970s. In the 1990s, municipalities and other education providers obtained remarkable autonomy how to develop their schools and school networks. This decentralisation was at its peak at the beginning of the 1990s and has been moving in the direction of deconcentration since the end of the 1990s, as presented in Chap. 2 of this book. The decentralisation in the 1990s made the guidance from the local education provider, the municipality, to the principals very different in various municipalities, and no uniform solutions have existed since that. The lack of proper resources has also increased the deficits, particularly, when municipalities have consistently been meeting with severe financial cuts. There have been many changes, and the pace of change has been rapid. Because of all this, most essential is a joint commitment, and to achieve that we need to secure involvement, participation, interaction and communication.

To manage the problems and deficits, the proper funding of schools is, naturally, a must. In addition to this, adequate time for changes and professional development are needed to change and develop the school culture to meet the changes. If the changes are not jointly planned, the commitment will be weak, and the change may not take place as planned. The lack of reflective dialogue was seen to increase change resistance, and there was no positive drive for change (Kovalainen, 2020). Leading people in change requires understanding the change, strong self-knowledge, systematic work, long-term focus, as well as broad and constant communication and professional development.

In the light of pedagogical leadership, leading people in change requires the realisation of pedagogical leadership in the learning community. On every level of the educational administration, this calls for active and holistic pedagogical leadership (see, Schaefers, 2002). The complex and dynamic operational environment challenges educational organisations to develop themselves and their members in consistent change and deficit (Alava et al., 2021; Kovalainen, 2020).

Theorising: Towards the Axioms of Pedagogical Leadership

When linking together the analyses above in this article with the works of Uljens (2015), Alava (2016); Alava et al. (2012, 2021), Kovalainen (2020), we can conclude that for the Finnish broad pedagogical leadership we have the following axioms as presented in Fig. 7.1.

  • The main focus is on

    1. 1.

      Taking care of the learning, growth and well-being of students

    2. 2.

      Understanding its contextual nature

  • The main orientations are

    1. 1.

      Values and ethical leadership and

    2. 2.

      Future orientation and environmental scanning

  • Leading people in change comprises of

    Involvement, participation, communication, interaction; collaborative leadership

  • Organisational outcome and result are

    A school as a learning community with its new leadership orientations

Fig. 7.1
An illustration of Finnish broad pedagogical leadership includes the main orientations, processes to be led like analysis of context and strategy work, curriculum, organizational culture and development, and interpersonal processes that yield organizational outcomes.

Finnish broad pedagogical leadership

Full size image

In order for the axioms to realise, we argue that constructing communities of learners and meeting deficits in pedagogical leadership, we need to lead several processes in educational organisations – in every educational organisation in its own way utilising its contextual elements (see Fig. 7.1):

  1. 1.

    Leading future orientation, strategic development and their appropriate enactment

  2. 2.

    Leading the development of curriculum

  3. 3.

    Leading the development of organisational culture

  4. 4.

    Leading interpersonal processes

Discussion

Van Manen (2016) stated that the interest of educational sciences has more conventionally focused on separating the efficiency and inefficiency of teaching from each other. Instead, he emphasises it should concentrate on what is and is not good for the children and for the young. Both education and educational leadership should be arranged from the perspective of the child and the young, because children and young of our time live in a complex, fragmented, contradicting world which is full of conflicts and where reality is filled with consistently altering beliefs, values, religions and living conditions in a world of random events (Kovalainen, 2020; van Manen, 2016).

In conclusion, we cannot show or pinpoint one single right or wrong way to lead educational organisations. Rather we view a multifaceted spectrum of leadership approaches and practices, which need to be applied according to the need, situation, time and place. As we have seen above, defining pedagogical leadership, detecting its deficits and making change happen are contextual and situational. Therefore, the utmost responsibility lies with the individual educational leaders and the educational communities.

Traditionally, taking care of the well-being of citizens has been considered to be the responsibility of the government in Finland. Presently, we observe the citizens to have an increasing responsibility for it. The challenges in this major change emphasise the increased importance of pedagogical aspects in educational leadership (Hallinger, 2003; Robinson et al., 2008.) This system-wide change calls for a more flexible, contextual and independent leadership approach (Fullan, 2016; Hargreaves, 2010; Harris et al., 2006; Schaefers, 2002; Schratz, 2013).

Finally, we conclude following the arguments of Alava (2019) and debates above, that:

  • If schools are to improve, staff – teachers and leaders – must develop the capacity to function as learning communities.

  • If schools are to function as learning communities, they must develop a collaborative culture and network orientation.

  • If schools are to develop a collaborative culture, they must overcome a tradition of teacher isolation and adopt new pedagogical leadership.

  • If schools are to overcome their tradition of teacher isolation, teachers must learn to work in effective, high performing teams supported and encouraged by school leaders.