Новија схватања лидерства у образовању

Abstract

In the early 21st century the interest in educational leadership has suddenly started to grow. It has been recognized worldwide that the effective leaders are necessary for educational institutions, if they are expected to provide the best possible education to the young. This tendency has emerged due to a widespread belief, based on a number of research evidence, that the quality of leadership is considerably associated with the students’ achievements. In addition, the studies show that the effects of leadership on the achievements are indirect and that leadership, among all other factors related to school, immediately follows the quality of teaching in its contribution to school learning. With the aim of better understanding this phenomenon, which is not sufficiently considered in Serbian pedagogica literature, , this paper is focused on the issue of defining the leadership in education and the relationship between the concepts of management and leadership in education as well. Given that, in accordance with new and more complex requirements that have been placed before the leaders in modern education, different views on their function have emerged; we considered three different approaches to the operationalization of the function of the educational institutions’ leaders: through their roles, competencies and practices. Within this approach we also considered the phenomenon of distributive leadership, which represents one of the most effective ideas in the literature on educational leadership in the last decade.