Introduction

There is a growing recognition in the increasingly complex contexts of educational change and accountability that deep and sustained school improvement will depend upon the leadership of the many rather than the few. There is a groundswell towards leadership as empowerment, transformation and community-building and away from the’ great man’ theory of leadership. As Heifetz (1994) suggests ‘instead of looking for saviours we should be calling for leadership that will challenge us to face problems for which there are no simple, painless solutions - problems that require us to learn new ways’ (21). Similarly, Pullan (2001: 2) proposes that ‘charismatic leaders inadvertently do more harm than good because, at best, they provide episodic improvement followed by frustrated or despondent dependency’. Consequently, there is a powerful argument for looking at alternative ways of leading, looking for competing theories of leadership and challenging the orthodoxy that equates leadership with the efforts of one person.