A Review of Leadership Styles and Models of Educational Management: How Does it Inform School Leadership Practices?

The 21st century has witnessed great interest in educational leadership partly because of the widespread belief placed on the quality of leadership in bringing significant progress to student and school improvement outcomes. This broadens the recognition and need that schools need effective and efficient leaders and managers if they are to provide the best possible outcomes. This article reviews six model of educational management (formal, collegial, political, ambiguity, cultural and subjective) and nine related leadership styles (Managerial, Emotional, Transformational, Distributed, Transactional, Postmodern, Contingency, Participative and Moral). The main purpose of this article was to establish a linkage leadership styles and models and educational management and how such a linkage can inform school leadership practices for continuous school improvement plans. The linkage does focus on the role educational leadership can play in meeting the challenges facing educational institutions today. The article concludes that the relevance of the linkage will greatly depend on the organizational context and applicability depends on the event, the situation and members within the school. The validity of this linkage will also depend on the following considerations: size of the institution; structure of the organization; nature of the leadership process; availability of resources and external environment