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Review article, strategy and strategic leadership in education: a scoping review.

• 1 Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Research Centre for Human Development, Porto, Portugal
• 2 Universidade de Évora, Évora, Portugal

Strategy and strategic leadership are critical issues for school leaders. However, strategy as a field of research has largely been overlooked within the educational leadership literature. Most of the theoretical and empirical work on strategy and strategic leadership over the past decades has been related to non-educational settings, and scholarship devoted to these issues in education is still minimal. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide a comprehensive overview of relevant research regarding strategy and strategic leadership, identifying any gaps in the literature that could inform future research agendas and evidence for practice. The scoping review is underpinned by the five-stage framework of Arksey and O’Malley . The results indicate that there is scarce literature about strategy and that timid steps have been made toward a more integrated and comprehensive model of strategic leadership. It is necessary to expand research into more complex, longitudinal, and explanatory ways due to a better understanding of these constructs.

Introduction

Strategy and strategic leadership are critical issues for school leaders ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2011 ). However, strategy as a field of research has largely been overlooked in educational leadership literature ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ). Most of the theoretical and empirical work on strategy and strategic leadership over the past decades has been related to non-educational settings, and scholarship devoted to these issues in education is still very limited ( Cheng, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Chan, 2018 ).

The concept of strategy appeared in educational management literature in the 1980s; however, little research was produced until the 1990s (cf. Eacott, 2008b ). Specific educational reforms led to large amounts of international literature mostly devoted to strategic planning ( Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Eacott, 2011 ). For a long period, the concept of strategy was incomplete and confusing. The word “strategy” was often used to characterize different kinds of actions, namely, to weight management activities, to describe a high range of leadership activities, to define planning, or to report to individual actions within an organization ( Eacott, 2008a ).

Strategy and strategic planning became synonymous ( Eacott, 2008b ). However, strategy and planning are different concepts, with the strategy being more than the pursuit of a plan ( Davies, 2003 , Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). Both phases of plans’ design and plans’ implementation are related, and the quality of this second phase highly depends on planning’ quality ( Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Eacott, 2011 ; Meyers and VanGronigen, 2019 ). Planning and acting are related and must emerge from the strategy. As stated by Bell (2004) .

Planning based on a coherent strategy demands that the aims of the school are challenged, that both present and future environmental influences inform the development of the strategy, that there should be a clear and well-articulated vision of what the school should be like in the future and that planning should be long-term and holistic (p. 453).

Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a comprehensive and holistic framework of strategy, considering it as a way of intentionally thinking and acting by giving sense to a specific school vision or mission ( Davies, 2003 , 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ).

The works of Davies and colleagues ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ) and Eacott (2008a , 2008b) , Eacott (2010a , 2011) were essential and contributed to a shift in the rationale regarding strategy by highlighting a more integrative and alternate view. Davies and colleagues ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ) developed a comprehensive framework for strategically focused schools , comprising strategic processes, approaches, and leadership. In this model, the strategy is conceptualized as a framework for present and future actions, sustained by strategic thinking about medium to long term goals, and aligned to school vision or direction.

Strategic leadership assumes necessarily a relevant role in strategically focused schools. Eacott (2006) defines strategic leadership as “leadership strategies and behaviors relating to the initiation, development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of strategic actions within an educational institution, taking into consideration the unique context (past, present, and future) and availability of resources, physical, financial and human” (p. 1). Thereby, key elements of strategic leadership can be identified as one that: 1) acts in a proactive way to contextual changes; 2) leads school analysis and response to changing environment; 3) leads planning and action for school effectiveness and improvement in face of contextual challenges and; 4) leads monitoring and evaluation processes to inform decision making strategically ( Cheng, 2010 ). This brings to the arena a complex and dynamic view of strategic leadership as it is a complex social activity that considers important historical, economic, technological, cultural, social, and political influences and challenges ( Eacott, 2011 ).

Along with these authors, this paper advocates a more comprehensive and contextualized view of strategy and strategic leadership, where strategy is the core element of any leadership action in schools ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ). Here, strategic leadership is not seen as a new theory, but an element of all educational leadership and management theories ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ). Even so, these concepts can inform and be informed by diverse leadership theories, a strategy-specific framework is needed in the educational field.

Considering all the above, strategy can be identified as a topic that is being researched in education, in the recent decades. Nonetheless, there is still scarce educational literature about this issue ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Cheng, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Chan, 2018 ). After 10 years of Eacott’s analysis of literature on strategy in education, it seems that this educational construct is being overlooked as there is still no consensual definition of strategy, different studies are supported in diverse conceptual frameworks and empirical studies about this topic are scarce ( Cheng, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Chan, 2018 ). Moreover, despite the interest of a multidisciplinary vision of strategy and strategic leadership, we agree with Eacott (2008b) about the need for a meaningful definition of strategy and strategic leadership in education, as it is a field with its specifications. Hence, research is needed for a clear definition of strategy, an integrated and complete framework for strategic action, a better identification of multiple dimensions of strategy and a comprehensive model of strategic leadership that has strategic thinking and action as core elements for schools improvement (e.g., Eacott, 2010a ; Hopkins et al., 2014 ; Reynolds et al., 2014 ; Harris et al., 2015 ; Bellei et al., 2016 ). This paper aims to contribute to the field offering a scoping review on strategy and strategic leadership in the educational field.

A clear idea of what strategy and strategic leadership mean and what theory or theories support it are of great importance for research and practice. This scoping review is an attempt to contribute to a strategy-specific theory by continuing to focus on ways to appropriately develop specific theories about strategy and strategic leadership in the educational field, particularly focusing on school contexts.

This study is a scoping review of the literature related to strategy and strategic leadership, which aims to map its specific aspects as considered in educational literature. Scoping reviews are used to present a broad overview of the evidence about a topic, irrespective of study quality, and are useful when examining emergent areas, to clarify key concepts or to identify gaps in research (e.g., Arksey and O’Malley, 2005 ; Peters et al., 2015 ; Tricco et al., 2016 ). Since in the current study we wanted to explore and categorize, but not evaluate, information available concerning specific aspects of strategy in educational literature, we recognize that scoping review methodology serves well this purpose.

In this study, Arksey and O’Malley (2005) five-stage framework for scoping reviews, complemented by the guidelines of other authors ( Levac et al., 2010 ; Colquhoun et al., 2014 ; Peters et al., 2015 ; Khalil et al., 2016 ), was employed. The five stages of Arksey and O’Malley’s framework are 1) identifying the initial research questions, 2) identifying relevant studies, 3) study selection, 4) charting the data, and 5) collating, summarizing and reporting the results. In the sections below, the process of this scoping review is presented.

Identifying the Initial Research Questions

The focus of this review was to explore key aspects of strategy and strategic leadership in educational literature. The primary question that guided this research was: What is known about strategy and strategic leadership in schools? This question was subdivided into the following questions: How should strategy and strategic leadership in schools be defined? What are the main characteristics of strategic leadership in schools? What key variables are related to strategy and strategic leadership in schools?

Identifying Relevant Studies

As suggested by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) , keywords for the search were defined, and databases were selected. Key concepts and search terms were developed to capture literature related to strategy and strategic leadership in schools, considering international perspectives. The linked descriptive key search algorithm that was developed to guide the search is outlined in Table 1 .

TABLE 1 . Key search algorithm.

Considering scoping review characteristics, time and resources available, inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed. Papers related to strategy and strategic leadership, published between 1990 and 2019, were included. Educational literature has reported the concepts of strategy and strategic leadership since the 1980s ( Eacott, 2008a ; 2008b ). However, it gained expansion between 1990 and 2000 with studies flourishing mostly about strategic planning ( Eacott, 2008b ). Previous research argues that strategy is more than planning, taking note of the need to distinguish the concepts. Considering our focus on strategy and strategic leadership, studies about strategic planning were excluded as well as papers specifically related to other theories of leadership than strategic leadership. A full list of inclusion and exclusion criteria is outlined in Table 2 .

TABLE 2 . Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The following six electronic databases were searched to identify peer-reviewed literature: ERIC, Education Source, Academic Search Complete, Science Direct, Emerland, and Web of Science. Additionally, a manual search of the reference lists of identified articles was undertaken, and Google Scholar was utilized to identify any other primary sources. The review of the literature was completed over 2 months, ending in August 2019.

Study Selection

The process of studies’ selection followed the Preferred Reporting of Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement ( Moher et al., 2009 ). Figure 1 illustrates the process of article selection.

FIGURE 1 . PRISMA chart outlining the study selection process.

With the key search descriptors, 1,193 articles were identified. A further number of articles were identified using Google Scholar. However, a large number of articles were removed from the search, as they were duplicated in databases, and 231 studies were identified as being relevant.

The next phases of studies’ selection were guided by the inclusion and exclusion criteria presented above. A screening of the titles, keywords, and abstracts revealed a large number of irrelevant articles, particularly those related to strategic planning (e.g., Agi, 2017 ) and with general ideas about leadership (e.g., Corral and Gámez, 2010 ). Only 67 studies were selected for full-text access and analyses.

Full-text versions of the 67 articles were obtained, with each article being reviewed and confirmed as appropriate. This process provided an opportunity to identify any further additional relevant literature from a review of the reference lists of each article (backward reference search; n = 2). Ultimately, both with database search and backward reference search, a total of 29 articles were included to be analyzed in the scoping review, considering inclusion and exclusion criteria. During this process of study selection, several studies were excluded. As in the previous phase, examples of excluded papers include studies related to strategic planning where the focus is on the planning processes (e.g., Bennett et al., 2000 ; Al-Zboon and Hasan, 2012 ; Schlebusch and Mokhatle, 2016 ) or with general ideas about leadership (e.g., FitzGerald and Quiñones, 2018 ). Additionally, articles that were primarily associated with other topics or related to specific leadership theories (e.g., instructional leadership, transformational leadership) and that only referred briefly to strategic leadership were excluded (e.g., Bandur, 2012 ; Malin and Hackmann, 2017 ). Despite the interest of all these topics for strategic action, we were interested specifically in the concepts of strategy, strategic leadership, and its specifications in educational literature.

Data Charting and Collation

The fourth stage of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) scoping review framework consists of charting the selected articles. Summaries were developed for each article related to the author, year, location of the study, participants, study methods, and a brief synthesis of study results related to our research questions. Details of included studies are provided in the table available in Supplementary Appendix S1 .

Summarising and Reporting Findings

The fifth and final stage of Arksey and O’Malley (2005) scoping review framework summarises and reports findings as presented in the next section. All the 29 articles were studied carefully and a content analysis was taken to answer research questions. Research questions guided summaries and synthesis of literature content.

In this section, results are presented first with a brief description of the origin and nature of the studies, and then as answering research questions previously defined.

This scoping review yielded 29 articles, specifically devoted to strategy and strategic leadership in education, from eleven different countries (cf. Figure 2 ). The United Kingdom and Australia have the highest numbers of papers. There is a notable dispersion of literature in terms of geographical distribution.

FIGURE 2 . Number of papers per country.

A large number of these articles were published by Brent Davies and colleagues ( N = 9) and Scott Eacott ( N = 6). Without question, these authors have influenced and shaped the theoretical grounding about strategy and strategic leadership in educational literature. While Davies and colleagues have contributed to design a framework of strategy and strategic leadership, influencing the emergence of other studies related to these topics, Eacott provided an essential contribution by exploring, systematizing, and problematizing the existing literature about these same issues. The other authors have published between one and two papers about these topics.

Seventeen papers are of conceptual or theoretical nature, and twelve are empirical research papers (quantitative methods–7; qualitative methods–4; mixed methods–1). The conceptual/theoretical papers analyze the concepts of strategy and strategic leadership, present a framework for strategic leadership, and discuss implications for leaders’ actions. The majority of empirical studies are related to the skills, characteristics, and actions of strategic leaders. Other empirical studies explore relations between strategic leadership and other variables, such as collaboration, culture of teaching, organizational learning, and school effectiveness.

How should Strategy and Strategic Leadership in Schools be Defined?

The concept of strategy is relatively new in educational literature and, in great part, related to school planning. In this scoping review, a more integrated and comprehensive view is adopted ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). Davies (2003) defined strategy as a specific pattern of decisions and actions taken to achieve an organization’s goals (p. 295). This concept of strategy entails some specific aspects, mainly that strategy implies a broader view incorporating data about a specific situation or context ( Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ). It is a broad organizational-wide perspective , supported by a vision and direction setting , that conceals longer-term views with short ones ( Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ). It can be seen as a template for short-term action . However, it deals mostly with medium-and longer-term views of three-to 5-year perspectives ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ). In this sense, a strategy is much more a perspective or a way of thinking that frames strategically successful schools ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies and Davies, 2005 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ).

Eacott (2008a) has argued that strategy in the educational leadership context is a field of practice and application that is of a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary nature. More than a single definition of strategy, what is needed is a conceptual understanding and articulation of its fundamental features, which removes the need to answer, “what is a strategy?” Understanding strategy as choosing a direction within a given context, through leadership, and articulating that direction through management practices ( Eacott, 2008a , p. 356) brings to the arena diverse elements of strategy from both leadership and management. From this alternative point of view, a strategy may be seen as leadership ( Eacott, 2010a ). More than an answer to “what is a strategy?”, it is crucial to understand “when and how does the strategy exist?” ( Eacott, 2010a ), removing the focus on leaders’ behaviors and actions per se to cultural, social, and political relationships ( Eacott, 2011 ). Hence, research strategy and strategic leadership oblige by acknowledging the broader educational, societal, and political contexts ( Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ).

Strategic leadership is a critical component of school development ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ). However, to define leadership is challenging considering the amount of extensive, diverse literature about this issue. Instead of presenting a new categorization about leadership, the authors most devoted to strategic leadership consider it as a key dimension of any activity of leadership ( Davies and Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ). Barron et al. (1995) stressed the idea of change. As mentioned by the authors, implementation of strategic leadership means change: change in thinking, change in the way schools are organized, change in management styles, change in the distribution of power, change in teacher education programs, and change in roles of all participants ( Barron et al., 1995 , p. 180). Strategic leadership is about creating a vision, setting the direction of the school over the medium-to longer-term and translating it into action ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ). In that sense, strategic leadership is a new way of thinking ( Barron et al., 1995 ) that determines a dynamic and iterative process of functioning in schools ( Eacott, 2008b ).

In their model of strategic leadership, Davies and Davies (2006) consider that leadership must be based on strategic intelligence, summarised as three types of wisdom: 1) people wisdom, which includes participation and sharing information with others, developing creative thinking and motivation, and developing capabilities and competencies within the school; 2) contextual wisdom, which comprises understanding and developing school culture, sharing values and beliefs, developing networks, and understanding external environment; and 3) procedural wisdom, which consists of the continuous cycle of learning, aligning, timing and acting. This model also includes strategic processes and strategic approaches that authors define as the centre of this cycle ( Davies and Davies, 2006 , p. 136).

To deeply understand strategic leadership, it is necessary to explore strategic processes and approaches that leaders take ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ). In this sense, strategic leadership, strategic processes, and strategic approaches are key elements for sustainable and successful schools, which are found to be strategically focused. Davies (2006) designed a model for a strategically focused school that may be defined as one that is educationally effective in the short-term but also has a clear framework and processes to translate core moral purpose and vision into an excellent educational provision that is challenging and sustainable in the medium-to long-term (p.11). This model incorporates 1) strategic processes (conceptualization, engagement, articulation, and implementation), 2) strategic approaches (strategic planning, emergent strategy, decentralized strategy, and strategic intent), and 3) strategic leadership (organizational abilities and personal characteristics). Based on these different dimensions, strategically focused schools have built-in sustainability, develop set strategic measures to assess their success, are restless, are networked, use multi-approach planning processes, build the strategic architecture of the school, are strategically opportunistic, deploy strategy in timing and abandonment and sustain strategic leadership ( Davies, 2004 , pp.22–26).

What Are the Main Characteristics of Strategic Leadership in Schools?

Davies (2003) , Davies and Davies (2005) , Davies and Davies (2006) , Davies and Davies (2010) discuss what strategic leaders do (organizational abilities) and what characteristics strategic leaders display (personal characteristics). The key activities of strategic leaders, or organizational abilities, are 1) create a vision and setting a direction, 2) translate strategy into action, 3) influence and develop staff to deliver the strategy, 4) balance the strategic and the operational, 5) determine effective intervention points ( what, how, when, what not to do and what to give up ), 6) develop strategic capabilities, and 7) define measures of success ( Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ). The main characteristics that strategic leaders display, or their characteristics, are 1) dissatisfaction or restlessness with the present, 2) absorptive capacity, 3) adaptive capacity, and 4) wisdom.

Two specific studies explored the strategic leadership characteristics of Malaysian leaders ( Ali, 2012 ; Ali, 2018 ), considering the above-mentioned model as a framework. For Malaysian Quality National Primary School Leaders, the results supported three organizational capabilities (strategic orientation, translation, and alignment) and three individual characteristics of strategic leadership (dissatisfaction or restlessness with the present, absorptive capacity, and adaptive capacity). For Malaysian vocational college educational leaders, the results were consistent with seven distinct practices of strategic leadership, such as strategic orientation, strategic alignment, strategic intervention, restlessness, absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and leadership wisdom.

Other studies were also focused on the characteristics of strategic leadership with different populations and countries. Chatchawaphun et al. (2016) identified the principles, attributes, and skills of the strategic leadership of secondary school administrators from Thailand. The principles identified within the sample of principals included appropriate values, modern visionary, future focusing strategy, empirical evidence focus, intention toward accomplishment, decency, and making relationships. The attributes found were strategic learning, strategic thinking, and value push up. The skills were learning, interpretation, forecasting, planning, challenge, and decision making. Chan (2018) explored strategic leadership practices performed by Hong Kong school leaders of early childhood education and identified effective planning and management, reflective and flexible thinking, and networking and professional development as variables. Eacott (2010c) investigated the strategic role of Australian public primary school principals concerning the leader characteristics of tenure (referring to the time in years in their current substantive position) and functional track (referring to the time in years spent at different levels of the organizational hierarchy). These demographic variables have moderating effects on the strategic leadership and management of participants. These five studies seem to be outstanding contributions to solidify a framework of strategic leadership and to test it with different populations in different countries.

Additionally, Quong and Walker (2010) present seven principles for effective and successful strategic leaders. Strategic leaders are future-oriented and have a future strategy, their practices are evidence-based and research-led, they get things done, open new horizons, are fit to lead, make good partners and do the “next” right thing—these seven principles of action seem related to the proposal of Davies and colleagues. Both authors highlighted visions for the future, future long-term plans, and plans’ translation into action as important characteristics of strategic leaders.

One other dimension that is being explored in research relates to ethics. Several authors assert that insufficient attention and research have been given to aspects related to moral or ethical leadership among school leaders ( Glanz, 2010 ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ; Kangaslahti, 2012 ). The seventh principle of the Quong and Walker (2010) model of strategic leadership is that leaders do the “next” right thing. This relates to the ethical dimension of leadership, meaning that strategic leaders recognize the importance of ethical behaviors and act accordingly. For some authors, ethics in strategic leadership is a critical issue for researchers and practitioners that needs to be taken into consideration ( Glanz, 2010 ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). Glanz (2010) underlined social justice and caring perspectives as required to frame strategic initiatives. Kangaslahti (2012) analyzed the strategic dilemmas that leaders face in educational settings (e.g., top-down strategy vs. bottom-up strategy process; leadership by authority vs. staff empowerment; focus on administration vs. focus on pedagogy; secret planning and decision making vs. open, transparent organization; the well-being of pupils vs. well-being of staff) and how they can be tackled by dilemma reconciliation. Chen (2008) , in case study research, explored the conflicts that school administrators have confronted in facilitating school reform in Taiwan. The author identified four themes related to strategic leadership in coping with the conflicts accompanying this school reform: 1) educational values, 2) timeframe for change, 3) capacity building, and 4) community involvement. These studies reinforce the idea that school improvement and success seem to be influenced by the way leaders think strategically and deal with conflicts or dilemmas. Researchers need to design ethical frameworks or models from which practitioners can think ethically about their strategic initiatives and their dilemmas or conflicts ( Chen, 2008 ; Glanz, 2010 ; Kangaslahti, 2012 ).

Despite the critical contribution of Davies’ models ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ) and subsequent works, Eacott (2010a) questions the production of lists of behaviors and traits. This is likely one of the main differences between Davies’ and Eacott’s contributions in this field. While Davies and colleagues include organizational abilities and personal characteristics in their model of strategic leadership, Eacott (2010a , 2010b) emphasizes the broader context where strategy occurs. These ideas, however, are not contradictory but complementary in the comprehension of strategy as leadership in education since both authors present a comprehensive and integrated model of strategic leadership. Even though Davies and colleagues present some specific characteristics of leaders, these characteristics are incorporated into a large model for strategy in schools.

What Are Other Key Variables Related to Strategy and Strategic Leadership in Schools?

Other studies investigated the relationship between strategic leadership and other key variables, such as collaboration ( Ismail et al., 2018 ), the culture of teaching ( Khumalo, 2018 ), organizational learning ( Aydin et al., 2015 ) and school effectiveness ( Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2017 ).

One descriptive survey study presented teacher collaboration as a mediator of strategic leadership and teaching quality ( Ismail et al., 2018 ). The authors argue that school leaders who demonstrate strategic leadership practices can lead to the creation of collaborative practices among teachers and thus help to improve the professional standards among them, namely, teaching quality ( Ismail et al., 2018 ). One cross-sectional study identified positive and significant relations among the variables of strategic leadership actions and organizational learning. Transforming, political, and ethical leadership actions were identified as significant predictors of organizational learning. However, managing actions were not found to be a significant predictor ( Aydin et al., 2015 ). One other study establishes that strategic leadership practices promote a teaching culture defined as the commitment through quality teaching for learning outcomes ( Khumalo, 2018 ). These three studies provide essential highlights of the relevance of strategic leadership for school improvement and quality. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that in a research survey that examined the effect of leadership factors of administrators on school effectiveness, the authors concluded that the direct, indirect, and overall effects of the administrators’ strategic leadership had no significant impact on school effectiveness ( Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2017 ). These studies introduce important questions that need to be explored both related to strategy and strategic leadership features and its relations and impacts on relevant school variables. Such studies stimulate researchers to explore these and other factors that relate to strategic leadership.

The knowledge about strategy and strategic leadership is still incomplete and confusing ( Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ). From the 29 studies selected, divergent data and multiple concepts of strategy can be identified which reinforces the confusion about these issues. Some integrative clarification is still needed about the concepts of strategy and strategic leadership as about its core features. In this section, it is intended to contribute to the clarification and integration of the concepts considering the studies selected.

The emergence of politics and reforms related to school autonomy and responsibility in terms of efficacy and accountability brings the concept of strategy to the educational literature ( Eacott, 2008b ; Cheng, 2010 ). It first appeared in the 1980s but gained momentum between 1990 and 2000. However, the main focus of the literature was on strategic planning based upon mechanistic or technical-rational models of strategy. Authors have criticized the conceptualization of strategy as a way for elaborating a specific plan of action for schools ( Davies, 2003 ; Davies, 2006 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2008b ; Quong and Walker, 2010 ). These same authors adopted a more comprehensive and holistic model of strategy. The concepts have been developed from a more rational and mechanistic view related to planning processes to a more comprehensive and complex view of strategy and leadership that take into consideration a situated and contextual framework. Considering the contribution of these studies, strategy incorporates three core dimensions, articulated with a schoolwide perspective 1) Vision, mission and direction (e.g., Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ; Eacott, 2008a ) 2) Intentional thinking (e.g., Barron et al., 1995 ; Davies, 2003 ; Davies and Davies, 2005 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ): and; 3) Articulated decision-making and action (e.g., Davies, 2003 ; Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Davies and Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2006 ; Davies, 2007 ; Eacott, 2008a ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ).

Strategic leaders have an important role in strategy but, even considering this comprehensive and holistic concept of strategy, research poses the question of what are the main characteristics of strategic leaders in schools? From the literature reviewed, specific abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics may be identified. Looking for an integrated picture of strategic leadership, Table 3 represents the main contributions of the studies selected.

TABLE 3 . Strategic leadership: Main features.

Despite the contribution of these studies to deep knowledge about strategic leadership, the discussion here considers whether it is worthwhile to produce lists of behaviors and traits for strategic leaders in the absence of an integrated model that acknowledges the broader educational, societal and political context ( Dimmock and Walker, 2004 ; Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Eacott, 2011 ). Eacott (2011) argues that strategy, as constructed through analysis, is decontextualized and dehumanized and essentially a vacuous concept with limited utility to the practice that it seeks to explain (p. 426). Without a comprehensive and contextual model of strategy and strategic leadership, supported by research, the topics may still be overlooked and misunderstood. With this in mind, Figure 3 attempts to represent the core dimensions of strategy from a comprehensive perspective.

FIGURE 3 . Strategy and core dimensions from a comprehensive perspective.

As this is a scoping review, we tried to display a general view of the literature that can serve as a basis for a specific strategy theory in education and to more in-depth studies related to strategy and strategic leadership in schools. Nevertheless, we need to identify some methodological limitations of this study. As a scoping review, methods and reporting need improvement ( Tricco et al., 2018 ) and we are aware of this circumstance. Also, our search strategy may have overlooked some existing studies, since grey documents (e.g., reports) and studies from diverse languages than English were not included, that can misrepresent important data. Besides, inclusion criteria focused only on studies specifically devoted to strategy (not strategic planning) and strategic leadership (no other theories of leadership), but we acknowledge important contributions from this specific literature that were excluded. Finally, in our study there is no comparative analysis between the western and eastern/oriental contexts. However, we are aware that these contexts really differ and a context-specific reflection on strategy and strategic leadership in education would be useful. More research is needed to overcome the limitations mentioned.

Besides, the pandemic COVID19 brought new challenges in education, and particularly, to leaders. This study occurred before the pandemic and this condition was not acknowledged. However, much has changed in education as a consequence of the pandemic control measures, these changes vary from country to country, and schools’ strategies have changed for sure. Future research needs to explore strategy and strategic leadership in education considering a new era post pandemic.

With this scoping review, the authors aimed to contribute to enduring theories about strategy and strategic leadership in education. From our findings, it appears that this issue is being little explored. Despite the important contributions of authors cited in this scoping review ( Aydin et al., 2015 ; Chatchawaphun et al., 2016 ; Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2017 ; Ali, 2018 ; Chan, 2018 ; Ismail et al., 2018 ; Khumalo, 2018 ), minor advances seem to have been made after 2010. This is intriguing taking into account the leaders’ role in the third wave of educational reform, where strategic leadership pursues a new vision and new aims for education due to maximizing learning opportunities for students through “ triplisation in education’ (i.e., as an integrative process of globalization, localization and individualization in education)” ( Cheng, 2010 , p. 48). It was expected that research moved from rational planning models towards a more complex view of strategy in education ( Eacott, 2011 ). This review brings the idea that some timid and situated steps have been made.

Since the important review by Eacott, published in 2008, a step forward was made in the distinction between strategy and planning. Despite the significant number of papers about planning that were found during this review, the majority were published before 2008 (e.g., Nebgen, 1990 ; Broadhead et al., 1998 ; Bennett et al., 2000 ; Beach and Lindahl, 2004 ; Bell, 2004 ). Also, most of the papers selected adopt a more integrative, comprehensive, and complex view of strategy and strategic leadership (e.g., Eacott, 2010a ; Eacott, 2010b ; Davies and Davies, 2010 ; Eacott, 2011 ; Ali, 2012 ; Ali, 2018 ; Chan, 2018 ). More than identifying the “best of” strategy and strategic leadership, alternative models understand strategy as a way of thinking ( Davies and Davies, 2010 ) and a work in progress ( Eacott, 2011 ).

This also resonates with the educational literature about loosely coupled systems . There is evidence that loosely coupled educational organizations continue to exist and that resistance to change is a characteristic of school organizations ( Hautala et al., 2018 ). Strategic leadership gains relevance since leaders need to consider how to manage their loose and tight configurations and, hence, reinforce simultaneous personal and organizational dimensions related to school improvement. It is time to expand the research into more complex, longitudinal, and explanatory ways due to a better understanding of the constructs. This scoping review was an attempt to contribute to this endeavor by integrating and systematizing educational literature about strategy and strategic leadership.

Author Contributions

MC-collected and analyzed data, write the paper IC, JV, and JA-guided the research process and reviewed the paper.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the support to this publication (Ref. UIDB/04872/2020).

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.706608/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: strategy, strategic leadership, school leadership, scoping review, education

Citation: Carvalho M, Cabral I, Verdasca JL and Alves JM (2021) Strategy and Strategic Leadership in Education: A Scoping Review. Front. Educ. 6:706608. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.706608

Received: 07 May 2021; Accepted: 23 September 2021; Published: 15 October 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Carvalho, Cabral, Verdasca and Alves. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Marisa Carvalho, [email protected]

Educational Leadership: Literature Review Strategies

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A study on managerial leadership in education: A systematic literature review

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Leadership & Islamic Educational Management, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 2 Department of Management, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 3 Department of Islamic Educational Management, Universitas Islam Bunga Bangsa Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 4 Department of Primary Teacher Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 5 Department of D3 Hospitality, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 6 Department of Early Chieldhood Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 7 Department of Informatics Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia.
• 8 Department of Out of School Education, Universitas Insan Cendekia Mandiri (UICM) Bandung, Indonesia.
• PMID: 37332939
• PMCID: PMC10275767
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16834

Background: Articles on managerial leadership (ML) have been published from year to year, since 1950s. The use of ML theory in previous research is common, but some inconsistencies are found regarding the terms commonly used. In other words, there is a mismatch between the use of the term ML in article paper and structures. This will certainly have an impact on bias and ambiguity for future research literatures.

Novelty: Theoretical review on this topic is rarely carried out, specifically in ML theory. The novelty of this research lies in the classification results of articles that used the term ML in accordance with the theory.

Objective: This theoretical review was conducted to examine the classification of accuracy of articles which were using the term ML in title with four consistency and accuracy indicators on the article structures starting from the problem, aim, literature, results and discussion, as well as conclusion sections.

Method: This review as a qualitative literature research used a language and historical approach, as well as a ML theory. This study Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. The technique and instrument used was bibliographic instruments, comprehensive list of keywords and mixed search terms to search the articles online with the help of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers. A total of 68 articles published from 1959 to 2022 as a final reviewed. They were obtained from several well-known digital journal content such as Jstor, Proquest, Oxford University Press, Google Scholar, and National Library, as well as various journals under major publishers such as Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Emerald, Brill, and Wiley. The data collected were analyzed using content analysis with 4 indicators of consistent (accurate & additional) and inconsistent (difference & additional), and 4 accuracy category of accuracy, appropriate, bias, and error for determaining the articles classification, and validated them by using triangulation and grounded theory.

Results: The results showed that in 1959 the first article appeared using the word ML, in 2012 the first and only article appeared that only used ML, and the last is in 2022. Then, the consistency of the title with other article sections is 17 articles (25% of 68) according to the accurate term indicator. Last, the accuracy of articles was divided into four categories: 10 articles (15% of 68) in the accuracy category.

Contribution: This systematic review contributes the article classification that can become a more established scientific roadmap of references and reasoning of studying ML.

Keywords: Administration effectiveness; Leadership in education; Managerial leadership; Strategic management; Systematic literature review.

© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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A study on managerial leadership in education: A systematic literature review

Abdul karim.

a Department of Leadership & Islamic Educational Management, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia

b Department of Management, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Cirebon, Indonesia

Nunung Nurnilasari

Dian widiantari.

c Department of Islamic Educational Management, Universitas Islam Bunga Bangsa Cirebon, Indonesia

Fikriyah Fikriyah

d Department of Primary Teacher Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia

Ros Awaliyah Rosadah

e Department of D3 Hospitality, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Cirebon, Indonesia

Aip Syarifudin

f Department of Early Chieldhood Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia

Wahyu Triono

g Department of Informatics Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon, Indonesia

Kirana Lesmi

h Department of Out of School Education, Universitas Insan Cendekia Mandiri (UICM) Bandung, Indonesia

Nurkholis Nurkholis

Associated data.

Data included in article/supp. material/referenced in article.

Articles on managerial leadership (ML) have been published from year to year, since 1950s. The use of ML theory in previous research is common, but some inconsistencies are found regarding the terms commonly used. In other words, there is a mismatch between the use of the term ML in article paper and structures. This will certainly have an impact on bias and ambiguity for future research literatures.

Theoretical review on this topic is rarely carried out, specifically in ML theory. The novelty of this research lies in the classification results of articles that used the term ML in accordance with the theory.

This theoretical review was conducted to examine the classification of accuracy of articles which were using the term ML in title with four consistency and accuracy indicators on the article structures starting from the problem, aim, literature, results and discussion, as well as conclusion sections.

This review as a qualitative literature research used a language and historical approach, as well as a ML theory. This study Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. The technique and instrument used was bibliographic instruments, comprehensive list of keywords and mixed search terms to search the articles online with the help of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers. A total of 68 articles published from 1959 to 2022 as a final reviewed. They were obtained from several well-known digital journal content such as Jstor, Proquest, Oxford University Press, Google Scholar, and National Library, as well as various journals under major publishers such as Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Emerald, Brill, and Wiley. The data collected were analyzed using content analysis with 4 indicators of consistent (accurate & additional) and inconsistent (difference & additional), and 4 accuracy category of accuracy, appropriate, bias, and error for determaining the articles classification, and validated them by using triangulation and grounded theory.

The results showed that in 1959 the first article appeared using the word ML, in 2012 the first and only article appeared that only used ML, and the last is in 2022. Then, the consistency of the title with other article sections is 17 articles (25% of 68) according to the accurate term indicator. Last, the accuracy of articles was divided into four categories: 10 articles (15% of 68) in the accuracy category.

Contribution

This systematic review contributes the article classification that can become a more established scientific roadmap of references and reasoning of studying ML.

1. Introduction

The study of leadership has been a central part of the literature on management behavior in an organization for several decades and has been widely researched. In relation to that, there has been growing interest in global leadership among scholars and practitioners due to the strategic importance of organizations for expanding services. The previous research suggested that certain cultural leadership characteristics are likely useful. This view is widely supported by findings from almost all major research. Currently, there have been a thousand articles on the related subject, and it has been increasing at a high rate and a large body of literature [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] ]. Classically, managerial leadership (ML) was an effective and efficient organizational approach [ 9 ]. It was an on-demand useful leadership [ 10 ]. Recently, ML theory has been a combination between the functions and work of the managers with the role of leaders in an educational organization and corporate [ [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] ]. In addition, the ML is set up to discuss obstacles inhibiting leadership performance in formal organizations from achieving success in the current environment [ 8 , 15 , 16 ].

This research contributes to knowledge with an exploratory research of a review of consistent managerial leadership (ML) terms to avoid bias in some reading sources and references. The analysis was done by classifying articles using the term viewed from how the consistency fits the article's structure, problems, objectives, literature, findings, and conclusions through indicators of consistency and accuracy.

The issue has been explored through the lens of an event's team, which is in response to the call for more empirical research on the enablers and inhibitors of successful events as articulated in the literature. The issues in this study focus on inconsistencies in ML terms between the title and other parts of the article structure, making the articles biased and resulting in terminology errors. One solution is implementing history, consistency, and classifying articles based on accuracy indicators.

Several phenomena emerged in research articles about ML are that in reviewing the leadership literature, however, little consensus exists among researchers and practitioners about how to develop leaders [ 5 ]. The key emerging knowledge gap is the fact that the available studies have not investigated the link between leadership ethics and services [ 4 ]. The massive size and scope of the literature precludes detailed descriptions of individual studies of every leadership reference [ 1 , 17 ]. Furthermore, the literature on leadership does not involve an extensive list of leadership styles [ 6 ]. Only a few good studies have contributed to the roles and functions of leaders [ 18 ]. Moreover, regarding the review on the leader roles, they often struggle to balance the expectations of their many roles and responsibilities [ 16 ]. Leadership has always been more difficult in challenging times. It calls for a renewed focus on genuine leadership [ 19 ]. Consequently, several conscious leaders are vacuumed in institutions. Therefore, principle leaders are urgently needed [ 20 ].

ML is often used as a reference in developing leadership theory in the world of education, this is what makes ML a contribution that can be utilized and applied by all leaders as one of the right strategies in educational institutions. Leaders' knowledge, understanding and experience of the institutions or organizations they lead also influence their success in actuating the managerial of educational institutions.

Accordingly, based on relevant previous studies and reviews related to ML terminology, including: Yukl reviewed major leadership theories and summarized findings from empirical research on leadership [ 1 ]. Bolden reviewed conceptual leadership to identify its origins for further work [ 17 ]. Lekka & Healey identified specific leadership styles, behaviors, and practices that represent effective leadership [ 2 ]. Nazari & Emami discussed the status of leadership theory concerning its purpose, construct definitions, and historical foundations for future research [ 19 ]. Igbaekemen & Odvwri found the missing link between leadership styles and the impact on the follower's performance in an organization [ 20 ]. Khan et al. found the social contract of leadership is viewed as a myth that functions to reinforce existing structure about the necessity of leaders in organization [ 3 ]. Rigii found a clearer understanding of the concept and the need for practitioners to work towards ensuring organizations are aligned with best practices for leadership qualities [ 4 ]. Park et al. critically examined the literature on leadership competencies and behaviors [ 5 ]. Xie investigated the relationship between leadership and organizational culture measured in the literature [ 6 ]. Besides, Gifford et al.’s systematic review revealed that leadership for research use involves change and task-oriented behaviors [ 7 ]. According to Karim, Mansir et al., the current literature on ML development is sparse [ 11 , 21 ]. This observation leads to a review of the relevant literature in managerial leadership in education.

The study and research on ML has indeed been carried out from various aspects and events that occur in the world of education, but the existing research has not thoroughly explained the ML concept that can be applied to educational institutions that are programmed in a systematic, precise, accurate and sustainable manner. Based on the previous studies, there is still little research which investigated managerial leadership in educational system and too much the research explored the leadership in education. This research will contribute to the review of the literature confirmed that what is really known about the link between ML and performance, still remains largely unanswered. Based on the phenomena, problems, and various opinions of previous researchers, the novelty of this study is a review of the consistency of articles using ML in the title with other article structures through accuracy indicators to produce history, consistency, and article accuracy classification.

Based on the literature review and the results of previous research observations conducted at educational institutions that implement ML as a system. This research will thoroughly discuss managerial leadership in education, an education system that is systematically designed in accordance with the decisions of the leadership, managerial leadership theory in terms of various aspects of organizational and institutional management, so that this research can bring out the novelty of theory from various literature related to managerial leadership.

Within this gap between what we know and what we do, this paper will focus an investigation on the litelature review connecting with managerial leadership in educational system as central key to build positive school culture to achieve educational objective. Managerial leadership represents a rapidly evolving research domain which has seen significant theoretical development to date, but is still lacking in empirical testing of theories proposed. This is an important shortcoming as managerial leadership is paramount for corporate success in education. This literature review aims to address three research questions (RQs).

To set the stage for the importance of the topic, some literature highlights the ubiquity, and increasing rate, of managerial leadership in education. On the others hand, we aimed to systematically review the published literature on managerial leadership in education with a focus on frequency, setting, content, learning evaluation, and learning outcomes. This article is a critical review of the terminology of 68 articles mentioning the word ‘ML’ in their titles. The review used four consistent and accurate indicators to classify which articles fell into accurate, appropriate, biased, and error categories.

Based on the facts and problems described in the background above, the objectives for the importance of this research can be formulated, including the history of articles using the word ML in the titles, the consistent of the articles in using the word ML in their title with article sections based on consistency indicators, and The accuracy classification of articles using the word ML measured on accuracy indicators. With this aim, a systematic review can analyze the history, consistency and accuracy of articles on ML.

2. Literature review

2.1. the theoretical origins of managerial leadership.

Managerial leadership (ML) is a term that integrates management and leadership into a coherent concept [ 22 ]. Espinoza & Schwarzbart handle the convergence of roles with the title of managerial leader (MLr) [ 23 ], while Sveningsson et al. defined the ML as a work practice. In order to understand leadership as a work practice, we need more theories of managers' behaviours [ 24 ]. Gifford et al. argued that ML, for both point-of-care and senior managers, inspire and encourage for staff through a combination of task-oriented behaviours that are responsive to specific situations [ 7 ]. Ather argued that ML is an approach of getting things done through others most effectively and efficiently in an organization [ 9 ]. The ML in very essential to influence the quality. Meanwhile, leadership is the process that managers use to influence subordinators work towards organizational goals. Conceptually, leadership can be seen as that combination of traits, values, attitudes, and behaviors that result in the effective long-term performance of organizations [ 25 ]. In line with this approach, Valentine & Prater argued that leader's belief that collective decision making is a stronger response to solving the larger, while choosing to exercise ML skills to make routine decisions [ 26 ]. Larson identified that the problem solving was important behaviors of ML during a crisis and praise-recognition were important behaviors during a stable situation [ 27 ]. ML strategy creates change that affects the function and structure of an organization.

Before discussing more deeply about ML, it is also necessary to understand theories about leadership and management of an institution or organization, one of which is transformational leadership which can improve the quality of management processes and product innovation in institutional or organizational management [ 28 ]. In the organizational management theory, an institution or company requires knowledge dynamics and organizational orientation to ensure that one's leadership can bring progress to the organization they lead [ 29 ]. A theoretical review of managerial leadership work demonstrated the need to explore the relationships between managerial leadership and staff job satisfaction in the educational institution [ 30 ]. The emphasis here is placed on the theoretical framework used in this study, the Multiple Linkage Model of Leader Effectiveness [ 31 ]. Moreover, This Multiple Linkage Model considered a series of leadership behaviors, leadership power/influence factors, leadership skills, overall managerial leadership effectiveness, and situational variables [ 32 ]. A combination of these factors appeared necessary for understanding effective managerial leadership. Leadership effectiveness is, of course, a relative concept [ 33 ]. A managerial leader is considered to be effective ifthe manager's staff performs their work well and is adequately satisfied with their working milieu [ 34 ].

ML provides a four-tiered approach that helps professionals from all walks of life develop strong management and leadership skills [ 35 ]. It includes top leadership models and frameworks, tools for assessing leadership strengths, techniques for handling change and growth [ 36 ]. Specifically, MLr must have several skills: they think strategically and build effective teams and they create a healthy organizational culture [ 37 , 38 ]. ML implies two fundamental dimensions: 1. Informal dimension, which steams from the expertise and the abilities the leader, possesses and which is built over time by means of others' recognition. 2. Formal dimension, which steams from his formal authority, associated with a formal managerial position.nent of management and it heavily influences the performances and outcomes of organizations [ 39 ]. Characteristics of ML which combined from some of the experts’ thought above are [ 1 ]; leadership roles; values, culture, attitudes, task behaviours, unstructured relationships, and loyalty motivation [ 13 , 40 , 41 ], [ 2 ] the function of manager; planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling, and [ 3 ] managerial roles; interpersonal, informational, and decisional [ 11 , 42 ].

ML in principle will set the pattern of institutional management to advance an organization. This is done as part of the implementation of quality and quality management. This ML character is built to create a healthy and civilized organizational environment. ML style can create a ready-to-work organization and solid teamwork [ [43] , [44] , [45] ]. ML can be applied to educational institutions led by school principals through three approaches, namely the trait approach, which emphasizes motivation and managerial skills; the power/influence approach, which examines the accumulation and use of power; and the behavioral approach, which focuses on managerial activities [ 46 , 47 ]. The concept of ML pattern knowledge will be studied with various literatures to produce new theories that support educational management to be more advanced and of high quality in accordance with the policies of leaders who manage their institutions.

2.2. Theoretical review

Reseachers usually define managerial leadership according to their individual perspective and the aspect of the phenomenon of mos interest to them. after a comprehensive review of the ML literature, [ 48 ]. Most definition of managerial leadership involve an influence process, but the numerous definition of leadership that have been proposed appear to little else common. most of reseacher pinpointed that ML has been defined in terms of individual traits, leader behavior, interaction patterns, role lelationship, follower perception, influence on task goals, and influence on institutional culture [ 48 , 49 ].

A theoretical framework is usually explained in the literature review section, such as ML and situational concepts [ 3 ]. In reviewing the theory, we aimed to synthesize relevant bodies of literature and make connections between knowledge bases to propose a conceptual framework. We followed guidelines; that is, location of articles, search period, number of articles screened, and criteria for screening [ 5 ]. Rigii argued that the framework depicts a situation where accountability and ethics first interact with leadership qualities [ 4 ]. Based on the conclusions and the conceptual framework, the review ends by outlining the implication of this paper on theory, practice and policy in the next section.

The authors argue that managerial concern for people determines event's success as it enhances the effectiveness of intra-team interaction, thus enabling better team performance. Managerial concern for people is closely linked to managerial competencies as they explain how effectively event managers can deal with event employees, not only when resolving conflicts, but also when setting goals. Moreover, effective leadership requires managers to develop cognitive, social and emotional intelligence in order to recognise the needs of all team members, thus anticipating changes in motivation.

2.3. Consistency terminology and accuracy indicators

In the scientific areas, the most important thing is a common understanding of the basic concepts and terms. People are historically devoted to achieving this goal [ 50 ]. Product definitions and the grant of rights are the backbone of any licensing agreement. Using consistent terminology is key [ 51 ]. Therefore, the indicators used to review the use of the ML in each part of the article are the indicators of consistency and accuracy initiated by Yablo [ 52 ], Pavese, Menditto et al., and Royer which involve being consistent and inconsistent [ 50 , 51 , 53 ], are.

2.3.1. Consistent

Consistency ensures that author, reader, leader, and manager get the information they need to make the best possible high-level of decisions [ 51 ].

• 1) Accurate term is the accuracy of the use of the word “managerial leadership” without additional terms.

Accuracy is a qualitative performance characteristics, expressing the closeness of agreement between a measurement result and the value of the measurand [ 53 ].

• 2) Additional term is the accuracy of the use of the word “managerial leadership” (ML), adding terms either at the beginning, middle, or end of the word ML in each section of the article.

Closeness of agreement between a quantity value obtained by measurement and the true value of the measurand. The misuse of the word accuracy in place of trueness in most analytical publications was recently addressed [ 53 ].

2.3.2. Inconsistent

According to Royer, inconsistent is we had realized that all our terminology was inconsistent, but had never come up with such clear, understandable, easy-to-follow language until implementing organization [ 51 ].

• 1) Different of term a term that is used differently from the word “ML,” but the article still discusses managerial and leadership theory.

An effort has being made to understand whether the apparent inconsistencies are due to historical stratification or to sound reasons (e.g. sectorial), and to find ways toward reducing their number –not necessarily toward a single set of meanings for the concepts and terms, but limited, in addition to their general meaning, to undisputable sectorial needs [ 50 ].

• 2) Additional variable are variables that are used differently from ML terms and even tend to be different. However, the article still discusses managerial or leadership.

Similarly, if one or more influence quantities cause effects on the measurement result that can be identified as systematic components of the error (systematic error), such effect is expressed by the performance characteristics trueness. It can be quantified as bias, i.e. the difference [ 53 ]. However, an inconsistent rule is not false; indeed it may be correct in the only sense that matters, that of according with speakers' semantic intentions [ 52 ]. Managerial leadership holds a proven positive effect on the event team's performance and employee motivation to collaborate in order to achieve the set event's objectives. So the strong leadership makes an event's more competitive in institutional competition.

The code of article section is divided into; problems (P), objectives (A), literature (L), results (R), and conclusions (C). While the indicator codes used are Accurate term (AT), Additional term (AdT), Different term (DT), and Additional variable (AV) as described by Table 1 . The code for 68 articles is sorted by order of the year of the article. For example, the first article in 1959 was written 1a to 2019 64a, and the last year 2022 was written 68a. For the year code, the last two digits are taken. For example, 1959–2022 was written 59-22, while names are coded with initials, such as DAE.

Consitency and accuracy indicators.

Based on the theoretical review and managerial theory terminology described above, it can be concluded that ML can be applied with various decision-making indicators, namely the consistency and accuracy of its leaders which can influence the success of leaders in managing and managing the organization they lead.

The objects in this review are articles using the word managerial leadership (ML) in the titles published from 1950 to 2022, an analysis of the consistency of articles in each section of the article, and the classification of articles that fall into accurate, appropriate, biased, and error categories.

3.1. Method and approachs

The systematic literature review presented in this research has conducted a commonly applied methodology [ 54 ]. By following systematic methods to explore and classify relevant literature, such reviews provide reproducible, reliable assessments of the current status of a field of a research and diminish potential bias that may occur in narrative styles of analysis [ 55 ] by using PRISMA statement in Fig. 1 . The resulting quantitative assessment evaluates the subject area, type of method used, and outcomes obtained.

Selection flow diagram for the studies. (Adapted from The PRISMA Group [ 56 ])

This study of the literature in relation to ML in educational management addresses three main aims [ 1 ]: to examine history of article using the word ML in the titles [ 2 ]; to identify the consistent are the articles using the word ML in their title with article sections based on consistency indicators; and [ 3 ] to identify the accuracy classification of articles using the word ML measured on accuracy indicators.

An extensive review of published papers from 1950 to 2022 was carried out in order to capture consistency terminology in the area of ML. The emphasis was on those issues that either represented inconsistency in using ML that have implications for the literatures and future researchers [ 2 ]. Furthermore, methodological issues in leadership research for improving ML terminology are discussed also [ 1 ]. This article used an ML theory approach to obtain in-depth data [ 57 ], combining the role of a leader and a manager's function [ 11 , 12 , 58 , 59 ], historical [ 60 ], and internationally accepted language with consistent indicators consisting of AT and AdT and inconsistent consisting of DT and AV [ 50 , 52 ]. In fact, the skill and competence of ML must be enhanced for the leader to create positive culture in the educational institution [ 61 ]. Today, digital competence for leaders is very significant.

3.2. Techniques and data instrument

This review was firstl conducted on targeted articles that were most relevant to our purpose and research question in multiple online databases [ 5 ] such as Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Brill, Emerald, Springer, and Wiley, as well as several well-known digital journal content such as Jstor, Proquest, Oxford University Press, Google Scholar, and National Library with the help of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers [ 62 ]. The bibliographic instruments and comprehensive list of keywords and mixed search terms [ 63 ], such as ‘managerial leadership,’ ‘manager & leader,’ and ‘managerial leadership in education’ within the search titles were used to obtain 110 articles published from 1950 to 2020. The articles were selected based on the research objectives, especially the keyword ‘managerial leadership in education,’ to answer the problem formulations. As a result, this research identified 68 articles included in the final review, published between 1959 and 2022. The 68 articles were then presented according to year, name, title, and ML term in each article structures, such as problem, aims, literature, findings, and conclusions into “articles by year” files, “article section recapitulation,” and “review recapitulation” [ 64 ]. The year, name, and ML word in each article section and indicators were coded to simplify the review and analysis process. For example, in 1950, there was a DAE article. The code for the problem section that corresponded to the AT indicator was coded PAT1a59DAE, meaning that P stands for problem, AT means AT indicator, 1a means the first article, 59 means published in 1959, and DAE means the author's name [ 50 , 52 , 53 ].

3.3. Data analysis and validation

The 68 articles were analyzed using a content analysis technique through four indicators, namely AT, AdT, DT, and AV, to review the consistency of the use of the term ML in the title with other structures [ 65 ]. The data already contained in the file by year were analyzed for each part of the article structure. Then, each word was reduced and simplified so that only words or terminology appeared in each table according to indicators [ 66 , 67 ]. Once it had been simplified, the results were recapitulated and interpreted in a separate table. The data that had been successfully interpreted was then validated using the grounded theory ML technique to become data presented in the results and discussion [ 68 , 69 ].

4.1. Article history using world ML

Based on the data analysis of this study, the result of the history of articles using the word ML in the titles will be presented on Table 2 and Table 3 . Our systematic review attempted to analyze the paper based on history of publication from 1959 to 2022 concerning the ML in education. So we will illustrate in table below.

Articles details.

Articles titles type.

The article table using the word ML in the titles reveals: 1) GS provided 14 articles from 1999 to 2022 with article code/year/author/publisher/journal as follows: 16a99EY/GS/NDCC to 62a18WAG/GS/IS. 2) ProQuest provided 11 articles from 1980 to 1957 with codes 4a80 P/P/UO to 57a16HHHL/P/NDSU. 3) Elsevier published ten articles from 1971 to 2008 with the code 3a71NG/E/BH to 35a08JGJH/E/LQ. 4) Wiley published eight articles from 1959 to 2022 with the code 1a59DAE/W/PP to 68a22AB/W/JCN. 5) Taylor & Francis published seven articles in 1990–2022 with codes 5a86CM/T&F/JGHE to 66a22 kT/T&F/APJSWD. 5) JSTOR provided five articles from 1986 to 2017 with code 6a86JDM/Js/JDA up to 58a17ALD/Js/AMJ. 6) Emerald published five articles from 2006 to 2021 with codes 24a06AMMR/Em/LHS to 65a22ESO/Em/ERIJ. 7) SAGE published five articles from 1989 to 2022 with codes 9a89GY/S/JM to 67a22JKT/S/GBR. 7) Springer published two articles in 1990 and 2001 under the code: 10a90JIAR/S/JBE & 17a01 MG/S/JBE. 8) OUP published one article in 2012 with the code 49a12S/OUP/UQBSP. Wiley published the first and last articles with ML term in the titles. GS, the largest database of five other databases, provided 14 articles entitled ML. Meanwhile, Elsevier, the largest publisher of the six publishers, provided ten articles with ML in the titles.

In the 50s, one article was found with code 1a, then in the 60s with code 2a, and the 70s with code 3a. The three articles using ML are in the main title (header). In the 80s, six articles used the word ML with the following details: four articles with codes 4a - 9a with the word ML, then two articles with codes 7a and 8a with the addition of the words ethical and behavior. The word ML in the six articles is in the main title (header). In the 90s, seven articles had the word ML with the following details: five articles with codes 10a - 16a with the word ML, then two articles with codes 13a and 14a were added with the words practice, ethical, and behavior. The word ML in six articles with codes 10a - 16a is in the main title (header), while one with code 11a is in the sub-header. The title of the article published in 1959 that first used the word ML in the main title is an article with code 1a, with DAE as the author, W, as the published, and PP as the journal. In addition, the title of the first 1987 article with the addition of the word ‘ML’ located in the main title is the article coded 7a, with GE as the author, the Js database, and the JBE journal.

In the 2000s, the articles with the word ML in the titles reached 22 articles with the following details: twelve articles with codes 17a - 38a, then one with code 34a, with the word ‘managerial leaders’, and seven with code 19a- 32a with other words styles, roles, behaviors, development, practices, and implications, and two articles with codes 24a and 33a using ‘managers’ leadership.’ The words for both ML and ‘managers’ leadership’ in 21 articles with codes from 17a - 38a are in the main title (header). In contrast, another article coded 34a uses the word managerial leaders located in the sub-header. The title of the article published in 2008 using managerial leaders, which is in the sub-title, is the article coded 34a, with TOP as the author, T&F as the publisher, and PPMR as the journal. Meanwhile, the first 2006 issue title uses the other words managers' leadership style. It is in the main title is the article coded 24a, with AMMR as the author, E as the publisher, and LHS as the journal.

In the 2010s, the title of articles with ML term reached 26 articles with the following details: 14 articles with codes from 40a – 63a. One article coded 45a with the word managerial leaders, eleven articles coded from 39a - 70a with the words ‘behaviors’, ‘competencies,’ ‘styles,’ ‘roles,’ ‘strategies,’ and ‘skills,’ and an article with code 61a that only uses the word ‘leadership.’ As for the location of the words both ML and ‘managerial leaders,’ there are 24 articles with codes from 39a - 62a and 70a in the main title (header). Meanwhile, two other articles with the word ‘managerial leaders’ coded 55a and 63a are in the sub-header. The title of the first and only 2012 published article in the main title is an article coded 46a, with EMG as the author, T&F as the publisher, and ICUT as the journal. At the same time, the title of the last article published in 2019 using a hyphen (−) M-L skill located in the main title is an article coded 70a, with SV as the author, W, as the publisher, and PIQ as the journal. In addition, the only article titles published in 2018 that only use the word leadership are articles coded 61a, with LX as the author, E as the publisher, and EJTD as the journal. In the 2020s, four articles were found with code 65a – 68a. One article with code 68a uses the title MrL with the heading type, and one article with code 66a uses the title L as a sub-heading, while the other two articles with codes 65a and 67a use the title ML + T as a heading.

Research has consistently shown, however, that leadership is a skill that can be taught and improved. This theme of leadership teachability was echoed in several of the study populations reviewed in this study, where residents felt more confident after participating in explicit teaching programs about leadership.

4.2. Article consistency

Our systematical literature review in this stage, we have determined the publication papers in several reputable journals based on Problem, Aims, Literatures, Results, and Conclusion concerning ML. for further analysis we display in Table 4 below.

Review on articles’ problems (P), aims (A), literatures (L), results (R), and conclusion (C) published from 1959 to 2022.

According to the AT indicator, the problems section contains 17 items (20%) from articels code (PAT1a59DAE) to (PAT68a22AB), the aims section includes 21 items (24%) from code (AAT1a59DAE) to (AAT68a22AB), the literature section contains 20 items (23%) from code (LAT12a92LEF) to (LAT68a22AB), the results section includes 15 items (17%) from code (RAT12a92LEF) to (RAT68a22AB). The conclusion section contains 14 items (16%) from code (CAT4a80P) to (CAT68a22AB), with 87 items (25% of 340 items), it means 17 articles which were used the ML.

Beside that, according to the AdT indicator, the problems section contains 18 items (15%) from the code (PAdT7a87GE) to (PAdT67a22JKT). The aims section includes 28 items (23%) from the code (AAdT4a80P) to (AAdT67a22JKT), the literature section has 24 items (20.7%) from code (LAdT1a59DAE) to (LAdT67a22JKT), the results section include 26 items (21%) from code (RAdT1a59DAE) to (RAdT67a22JKT), the conclusion section consists of 25 items (21%) from code (CAdT1a59DAE) to (CAdT67a22JKT), with 121 items (36% of 340 items), it means 24 articles which are adding ML with the words ethical, behaviors, roles, style, development, function, position, skills, environmental, methods, principals, and performs.

Then, according to the DT indicator, the problems sections contains 14 items (26%) from the code (PDT6a86JDM) to (PDT63a19LMG), the aims section has 15 items (28%) from the code (ADT6a86JDM) to (ADT61a18LX), the literature section has 8 items (15%) from code (LDT66a22KT) to (LDT6a86JDM), the results section includes 9 items (17%) from code (RDT6a86JDM) to (RDT58a17ALD), the conclusion section contains 8 items (5%) from code (CDT6a86JDM) to (CDT63a19LMG), with 54 items (16% of 340 items), it means 11 articles not included in articles that use the word ML, but still discussing leaders and managers.

Additional indicators of variable suitability with the problems section contained 19 items (24%) from code (PAV2a65JKC-J) to (PAV66a22KT), the aims section has 4 items (5%) from code (AAV3a71NG) to (AAV66a22KT), literature section has 16 items (20%) from the code (LAV2a65JKC-J) up to (LAV61a18LX), the results section contains 18 items (23%) from the code (RAV2a65JKC-J) to (RAV61a18LX), the conclusion section contains 21 items (27%) from the code (CAV2a65JKC-J) to (CAV61a18LX), with 78 items (23% of 340 items), it means 16 articles not using the word ML, but still discussing managerial or leadership.

Thus, the consistency of the title with other article sections based on four indicators is as follows: 87 of 340 items (25% of 68 articles) is 17 articles according to the AT indicator, 121 of 340 items (36% of 68 artcles) is 24 articles with the AdT indicator, 54 of 340 items (16% of 68 articles) is 11 articles with the DT indicator, and 78 of 340 items (23% of 68 articles) is 16 articles with AV indicators. The article sections with four indicators show those 24 articles which are consistent with ML by additional terms (AdT).

A major finding in our study is that even managerial leadership may bear strong imprints of the constructions of subordinates and is even often initiated (or inhibited) by the very targets for leadership, i.e. the ‘followers’. This is to some extent in line with parts of the literature on active, selfleading followers, but in contrast, our study highlights the followers' initiation of the managerial leadership process, and therefore adds a new angle.

4.3. Article accuracy

The data in Table 5 for the 68 articles bellow show that approximately between 14 and 21 articles correspond to the AT indicator with the following details: 17 articles on the problem section, 21 articles on the aim, 20 articles on the literature, 15 articles on the results, and 14 articles on conclusion. Then other data shows that between 18 and 28 articles correspond to the AdT indicator with the following details: 18 articles on the problem section, 28 articles on the aim, 24 articles on the literature, 26 articles on the results, and 25 articles on the conclusion. Then the article data, according to the different term indicators, contain between 6 and 15 articles with the following details: 15 articles on the problem aspect, 15 articles on the aims, 6 articles on the literature, 9 articles on the results, and 7 articles on the conclusion. Finally, the article data that corresponds to the additional variable indicator contains approximately 4–22 articles with details as follows: 18 articles on the problem section, 4 articles on the aim, 18 articles on the literature, 18 articles on the results, and 22 articles on the conclusion section.

The clasification of articles accuracy.

Classification of articles those fall into the accuracy category in using the word managerial leadership (ML) in the title section with other article sections, namely 10 articles with article codes/year/author as follows: 7a87GE published in 1987, 8a89WFBA in 1989, 12a92LEF in 1992, 18a02DPK in 2002, 30a07SMA in 2007, 45a11RC in 2011, 48a12RRS in 2012, 55a14MB in 2014, 67a22JKT in 2022, and 68a22AB in 2022. Meanwhile, the classification of articles that fall into the category of accuracy in using the word ML adds the words ‘ethical,’ ‘behaviors,’ and ‘style’ in the title section with other article sections, namely 23 articles with the code: 9a89GY published in 1989, 13a95PEM in 1995, 14a96DRL in 1996, 1a04CK2 in 2004, 23a04S in 2004, 28a07FCM in 2007, 34a08TOP in 2008, 35a08JG(J.)H in 2008, 38a09ANb in 2009, 39a10CK in 2010, 42a11JYC in 2011, 43a11JWV in 2011, 44a11RFL in 2011, 49a12S in 2012, 50a12YJ in 2012, 51a13BDH in 2013, 53a13DG in 2013, 56a15FL in 2015, 57a16HHHL in 2016, 62a18WAG in 2018, 64a19SV in 2019, 65a21ESO in 2021, and 67a22JKT in 2022.

Then, the articles are categorized as appropriate in using the word ML in the title section with other article sections, namely 15 articles, divided into two groups. The first group, articles that use the word ML in the title but have other words in other parts of the article, are 10 articles with the following code: 1a59DAE published in 1959, 9a89GY in 1989, 23a04S in 2004, 28a07FCM in 2007, 34a08TOP in 2008, 38a09ANb in 2009, 43a11JWV in 2011, 49a12S in 2012, 57a16HHHL in 2016, and 62a18WAG in 2018. The second group is articles that use the word ML with other words in the title, but there is a change to the word ML in other sections, namely five articles with the code: 21a04CKa published in 2004, 39a10CKb in 2010, 42a11JYC in 2011, 56a15FL in 2015, 70a19SV in 2019, and 65a21ESO in 2021. As for the articles in the appropriate category based on the results of the score calculation, there are four articles with the codes: 14a96DRL, 35a08JG(J.)H, 44a11RFL, and 53a13DG were published between 1996 and 2013.

Beside that, the articles were categorized as biased in using the word ML in the title section, then changed to managerial and leadership words in the other articles, namely 1 article with code 6a86JDM published in 1986. Several articles with other biased categories based on the results of the score calculation; there were 23 articles divided into two groups: the first group with 16 articles that used the word ML in the title section and underwent changes in the article section, coded 4a80P, 10a90JIAR, 11a92HR, 16a99EY, 17a01MG, 22a04DBC, 26a07AEO-A, 31a07WGRN, 32a08HPN, 36a09ANa, 37a09DA, 40a11IHDA, 41a11IW, 47a12RMS, 52a13CS, and 63a19LMG published from 1965 were scattered until 2013. Meanwhile, in the second group, 7 articles used the word ML with additions in the title section and changed the parts of the article, namely articles coded 20a03AOD, 24a06AMMR, 25a06TH, 27a07EL, 58a17ALD, 59a18CS, and 66a22KT published from 2003 to 2018.

The last, the classification of articles was categorized as an error in using the word ML in the title section, then changed to the word managerial or leadership only in the article section, namely an article coded 3a71NG published in 1971. The article includes another error because it does not use the word ML in the title. Still, the word leadership later changed to managerial and leadership words in the article section; an article coded 61a18LX was published in 2018. In addition, nine other articles are categorized as errors based on the results of the calculation of scores which are divided into two groups: the first group contains five articles that use the word ML in the title and then change to managerial and leadership with the code 2a65JKC-J, 5a86CM, 15a98YAN, 46a12EMG, and 29a07WJrP which were published from 1965 to 2007. The second group contains four articles with the word ML and other words but changed to the word managerial and leadership, articles coded 19a02SKK, 33a08JS, 54a13LK, and 60a18DDM published from 2002 to 2018. Our results and findings highlight the vital role of followers in the initiation phase of managerial leadership, thereby contributing to an ‘expanded view’ of leadership/followership-dynamics. It is therefore also an example of how social constructionist studies can be social relevant to organizational concerns.

Based on the description of the research findings and Fig. 2 above, the researcher concludes that the ML literature has many research results that have been conducted and is divided into four categories, namely first, research whose theory is accurate and consistent according to the classification of the articles studied. Second, the results of appropriate research whose theories influence each other and support each other's variables so as to produce new theories related to ML. Third, research that is theoretically biased and does not support managerial leadership theory but can influence the concept of ML literature. Fourth, research with an error theory in this case means that the research results are not related and do not support each other so that there is a contradiction between the theories found and the previous theory. So that the research under study allows for a novelty theory about ML patterns in educational institutions which can be used as a reference for educational institutions with systemic management.

Clasification accuracy of articles.

5. Discussion

5.1. article history.

Based on the results analysis indicated that most articles using the word ‘managerial leadership’ (ML) in the title are provided by the database, followed by publishers. The database instrument is also used and recommended by Park et al. to obtain data online [ 5 , 70 ]. The 1959 was the first year articles using the title ML were found, as indicated by Emery, who wrote “ ML througn motivation by objectives [ 71 ] .” In addition, the first article to use the word ‘ethical’ was 1987 by Enderle [ 72 ], entitled Some perspective of MEL. Then in 2006, for the first time, the article used the word ‘managers’ leadership style’ as the main title, as written by Ref. [ 73 ], entitled A study of relationship between MrLS . Then in 2008, an article was found that first used the word ‘manager leaders’ as a subheading, written by Peterson & Fleet [ 74 ], entitled A tale of two situations: An empirical study of non-for-profit MLr. In 2012, the first and only article using the word ML only as the main title was written by Grassell [ 75 ]. Then in 2019, the last article with the word ML was found by Vandergoot et al., entitled Factors that influence the transfer generalization and maintenance of M-LSk: A retrospective study [ 76 ] . The newer published article from 2018 to 2023 pin pointed by Lekchiri who published the ML effectiveness in HE [ 77 ]. Rudolph et al. wrote the research paper concerning critique of research on health leadership in the organization [ 78 ]. As development theory in the leadership field Arici & Uysal investigated the leadership and green innovation creativity [ 79 ]. Fries discussed the leadership style and behavior [ 80 ].

5.2. Article consistency

A review in the problems section of 68 articles published from 1959 to 2022 found that 17 articles used the word ML in the problem section and matched the AT indicator. Then 18 articles using other ML words and according to AdT indicators. Then 15 and 18 articles use the word ‘managerial’ or ‘leadership’ and are by indicators of different terms. Only one article (1a) matched the AT indicator or an article that used the word ML in the problem section. Emery emphasized the aim of his article to outline an approach to ML that provides practical means [ 35 , 71 ]. Only in the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s did all the problems in the article section meet four indicators described by Delbecq as the last article with an AT indicator with the issue of an overview on effective ML [ 81 ]. In addition, Murphy & Enderle also mentioned that the illustration of the MEL was not only influenced by the organization's practice [ 82 ].

In the aims section, 21 articles use the word ML, 28 articles use the word ML with additional terms, three articles use the word ‘managerial’ or ‘leadership,’ and 15 and 4 articles use the word ‘managerial’ or ‘leadership.’ From the 50's to the ’90s, almost only one article per era was found, such as 1a, which uses the word ML in the objective section, as it was written by Emery “to outline an approach to ML,” that “to outline an approach to ML [ 71 ],” and article 2a as shown in Chadwick‐Jones “to demonstrate from case-study material the importance of MnL [ 83 ],” as well as article 12a, which aims to compare the ML practices performed at the senior- and middle-levels of higher education administration [ 18 , 84 ]. It was only from the 2000s to 2022 that more articles used the word ML in the article's destination. For example, Vandergoot et al. (2019) wrote the goal “to examine the factors affecting transfer generalization and maintenance of M-LSk” as the last author of 2019 [ 76 ].

The findings in the literature section showed that 20 articles use the word ML, 24 articles use the word ML with other words, 6 and 18 articles use the word ‘managerial’ or ‘leadership,’ and seven articles use the words' managerial’ and ‘leadership.’ In the 50s and 80s, no articles used the word ML. The word ML was only discovered in the 90s, as reinforced by Leonard and Lipsky with literature on ML practices and scales [ 18 , 85 ]. Since the 2000s, articles were found showing all indicators, although, in 2010, there were also empty different term indicators. However, a literature review showed that from 1959 to 2022, the AT indicator was the highest compared to other indicators. Kialain and Vandergoot used ML skills & development theory [ 8 , 76 ]. Kialain and Vandergoot et al. used ML skills & development theory [ 8 , 76 ]. The recent research was conducted by Ref. [ 80 ], Kafetzopoulos, and Kelemen discuss the development theory in the ML [ 86 , 87 ].

The data review of the results section of the article showed that 15 articles use the word ML, 26 articles use the word ML with other words, 9 and 18 articles use the word ‘managerial’ or ‘leadership,’ and nine articles use the word ‘managerial’ and ‘leadership.’ Other findings showed that from the ’50s to ’80s, as well as the 2010s, the word ML was not found at all in the results section, even if there were additional words such as “the managerial style of the top manager ranged from the benevolent authoritative” by Emery and Wongruangwisarn [ 71 , 88 ], and reinforced by Larson who used “transformational leadership behavior of management by exception [ 27 ].” However, in the 90s, articles were found using the word ML as written by Leonard, namely “selected ML practices”. In a sense, ML is closely related to the success of higher education administrative management at both the secondary and senior levels. If the pattern of ML is applied properly, the administration of higher education that it manages will also produce good quality so that the graduates are of high quality [ 18 ].”

The review data for the conclusion section showed that 14 articles use the word ML, 25 articles use the word ML with other words, eight articles use the words' managerial’ and ‘leadership,’ and 7 & 21 articles use the word ‘managerial’ or ‘leadership.’ Articles from the ’50s to the ’90s have no articles with the word ML. It was only in the 2000s that Ather found an article that concluded, “A ML quality is expected to combat any managerial challenges and complexities of the centuries ahead [ 9 ].” In this period, there is not a single article conclusion that uses the words managerial and leadership. Even up to 2010–2022, only ML words were found with other words. Kleinman and Larson concluded that “organization culture was specifically associated with transformational leadership behavior of managers [ 27 , 89 ].” Rudolph and Tuffour concluded that “organization culture was specifically associated with transformational leadership behavior of managers [ 34 , 90 ].”

5.3. Article accuracy

The data on the consistency classification of articles that use the word ML with other articles showed four categories: first, 11 articles with accurate categories, confirmed by Leonard with An analysis of ML practices and substitutes for leadership in higher education administration [ 18 ], Blom with Leadership on demand: Followers as initiators and inhibitors of ML [ 10 ], Enderle with Some perspectives of ethical ML [ 72 ], and Howell with An examination of demographic characteristics, preferred ML style, and managerial effectiveness of full-service lodging managers [ 91 ]; Second, 15 articles with appropriate categories, as strengthened by Peterson & Fleet with A tale of two situations: An empirical study of behavior by not-for-profit managerial leaders [ 74 ], and Y Chin with Seven ML competencies [ 92 ]. Kelemen investigated the several innovation in leadership based on demand era [ 93 ] and Arici & Uysal discuss about innovation leadership [ 94 ]. Third, 23 articles with bias categories as exemplified by Montgomery, who described “the results from a study of management training needs for the public [ 95 ]; ” Fourth, 11 articles with an error category as written by George with the sentence “the relationships that emerge from leadership research should be regarded as diagnostic tools, not precise guidelines [ 96 ].”

Based on the results of the discussion above, it can be concluded that the consistency of articles was divided into four categories: 10 articles in the accuracy category, 23 articles in the appropriate category, 24 articles in the bias category, and 11 articles in the error category. Moreover, managerial leadership aspect becomes significant part to discuss in the management science, because the good leader and manager will create good culture in the education.

6. Conclusion

6.1. conclusion and limitation.

Based on the analysis of the research results and the discussion in the previous chapter, several conclusions can be drawn to provide answers to research purpose. The results show that [ 1 ]: the article history showed that articles with the word ‘managerial leadership’ (ML) in the titles were provided mainly by based data such as Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, followed by reputable publishers with various journals such as Taylor & Francis, Sage, ScienceDirect, Wiley, Emerald, and Erich. Started in 1959 the first article appeared using the word ML. In 1987 the first article appeared using the word ‘ethical ML,’ then in 2008, an article appeared using the word ‘managerial leaders.’ After that, in 2006, an article appeared using the words' managerial leadership style’. Then in 2012, the first and only article appeared that only used ‘ML’, and the development of theory of ML in 2022, the last article used the word ‘ML as effective leadership in educational institution.’ [ 2 ] A review of the consistency of the word ML in the title analyzed using four indicators against other sections showed that there are: 17 of 68 articles fall into category of AT indicator, 24 articles fall into category of AdT indicator, 11 articles into DT indicators, and 16 articles into AV indicator [ 3 ]. The consistency of articles was divided into four categories: 10 articles in the accuracy category, 23 articles in the appropriate category, 24 articles in the bias category, and 11 articles in the error category. Moreover, managerial leadership aspect becomes significant part to discuss in the management science, because the good leader and manager will create good culture in the education.

The review is limited to access to databases, publishers, and journals to get complete and more articles related to ML, resulting in an incomplete analysis of the articles found. In addition, qualitative methods with a few average and percentage formulations cause interpretation and validation results that still need improvements, thus requiring a mix of methods for further research. Therefore, based on the results of the research and the conclusions found, the researcher realizes that there are limitations to the research results so as to provide an opportunity for future researchers to be able to study managerial leadership from a chronological aspect of theory, namely bringing together or tracing from the first theory in 1959–2023.

6.2. Contribution and implication

The findings contribution imply that article classification can become a more established scientific roadmap and be used as reading material, literature, and a map of reasoning for further researchers, especially those studying ML. moreover, future studies may involve more literature review and theoreticah review connecting with managerial leadership and leadership style in many approach. It may also possibly include quantitative analysis to allow generalisation of findings. We also hope to analyze the digital competence of ML for future study.

This study implication describes the function of managerial leadership differs in various types of organizations specifically in education; how the typical skills of management and abilities of leadership combine in the various roles of managerial leadership; the extent to which the functions of management and leadership are culturally based paradigms.

Author contribution statement

All authors listed have significantly contributed to the development and the writing of this article.

Data availability statement

Additional information.

No additional information is available for this paper.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

What is Ethical Leadership and Why is it Important?

Ethical leadership is not only the right thing to do, it is key to driving an organization's success.

Valerie Kirk

Errors, bad behavior, and poor judgment in leadership can negatively impact a company’s brand and reputation. For business success, it’s critical for organizations to fill their C-suite with ethical leaders.

Ethical leadership involves leaders and managers making decisions based on the right thing to do for the common good, not just based on what is best for themselves or for the bottom line. While profits are important, ethical leaders take into consideration the needs of customers, communities, and employees in addition to company growth and revenue when making business decisions. 

Ethical leaders encourage their team members to model this behavior, too. They help to build a workplace culture that values transparency, collaboration and inclusion, and where everyone feels safe to share their voice.

They can also help organizations recruit and retain top talent. Professionals are increasingly seeking out companies whose leaders strive to do the right thing. Generation Z, who will make up 25 percent of the workforce by 2025, demands leadership ethics more than generations that came before them. 

“Gen Z is not going to negotiate. They have really strong values and ethics, and they don’t bend them because of intimidation or because they are just getting a paycheck,” said Michael McCarthy, instructor at Harvard Division of Continuing Education’s Professional & Executive Development and host of the “ Happy at Work ” podcast. “The idea of letting harmful or hurtful behavior slide is not acceptable.”

Leaders who weigh ethical considerations before making key business decisions drive a company’s long-term success. 

The 6 Main Principles of Ethical Leadership

Having ethical leaders isn’t as simple as hiring “good” people. Companies should strive to fill their leadership ranks with people who embody the principles of ethical leadership. The six main principles include: 

Respect includes valuing others’ skills and contributions. While historically respect in the workplace may have been one-way (leaders demanding respect from employees), in an ethical work environment, respect is mutual. 

Mutual respect leads to healthier workplace relationships where both sides appreciate and support what the other is doing and feel secure in talking through issues and challenges. Healthy relationships create positive work environments, which drives increased productivity.

Current and upcoming business leaders should take mutual respect into account as workforce expectations continue to shift.  

“I tell current leadership to respect Gen Z. They have values and morals, and you’re going to have a better organization because of them,” McCarthy said. “They aren’t going to put up with the old hierarchy that doesn’t offer mutual respect.” 

2. Accountability

Ethical leaders hold themselves accountable for their actions. They make decisions based on integrity and stand behind their work. They also lead by example, communicate openly about challenges, and don’t look to place blame on others for any shortfalls.

Leaders make ethical decisions based on doing what is right for employees, customers, and the community. Because these constituents are always top of mind for ethical leaders, they often have a strong sense of service. They engage in activities such as charitable giving and volunteer work to give  back to their communities — and encourage their teams to do the same. 

Leaders who are transparent build trust amongst their organizations and amongst customers. 

To build and maintain trust, leaders must be good communicators who speak openly and honestly about issues. Regardless of the issue’s severity or unpopularity, leaders’ responsibility to be clear and candid  empowers others to make the right decisions with the information they have. 

Honesty and transparency also help to build a brand’s reputation, leading to long-term customer loyalty.

Justice is not just about following the law, but about ensuring that everyone is getting what they deserve. Ethical leaders approach situations with a focus on treating everyone fairly, and they expect their teams to treat each other and customers the same way. Through their actions, they build equitable work environments where everyone feels respected. 

6. Community

Ethical leaders view their companies as communities and consider everyone involved when evaluating situations and making decisions. By viewing their organizations this way, they build equity and inclusion into their decision-making process and create work environments that encourage collaboration across teams. 

Learn more about Harvard DCE’s Ethical Leadership program

Examples of Positive and Negative Ethical Leadership

The following three examples are of companies that were faced with ethical dilemmas and how different leadership styles led to vastly different outcomes. 

Johnson & Johnson

One of the most famous examples of ethical leadership was the case of the Tylenol cyanide poisonings in the early 1980s. Seven people died of cyanide poisoning, and the only connecting factor was that they had all taken extra-strength Tylenol. During investigation, it was discovered that the tablets were laced with cyanide.

Johnson & Johnson’s leaders acted quickly and pulled all Tylenol products off the shelves — 31 million bottles, worth over $100 million — and stopped all production and advertising. The swiftness of their decision, although costly, put customers’ well-being first and saved lives.

They partnered with law enforcement to find the perpetrator and subsequently developed the first-ever tamper-resistant packaging. They were transparent with the public about what they were doing to ensure this tragedy never happened again. 

The Tylenol brand recovered from the incident, largely because of Johnson & Johnson’s ethical leadership team’s swift action and transparent care for customers.

In 2008, JetBlue left passengers stranded on the tarmac at the John F. Kennedy International Airport for more than five hours during a snowstorm. The delay had a ripple effect — JetBlue had to cancel more than 1,000 flights over the following five days.

In response, JetBlue’s CEO wrote a letter of apology to customers. He also directed his team to draft a customer bill of rights, which outlined customers’ rights to information about flights and information about compensation in the event of delays or cancellations.

The CEO also participated in a public apology tour, taking full responsibility for the incident rather than blaming it on the weather.

His transparency and accountability created trust with customers, who stayed loyal to the airline.

Wells Fargo

In September 2016 , it was revealed that employees of Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States, opened millions of unauthorized accounts in order to meet aggressive sales targets. This widespread fraudulent activity was the result of a work culture that prioritized quantity over quality and pushed employees to engage in unethical practices.

Company leaders denied knowledge of fraudulent practices. The bank was hit with significant financial penalties, but because of the lack of accountability, they damaged the trust of their customers and investors. They reported a 50 percent profit loss in the quarter following the scandal.

Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership

Companies cannot underestimate the power of different leadership styles on their growth and long term success. Those who practice ethical leadership have positive corporate cultures where employees are engaged, motivated, and feel good about coming to work. Companies without ethical leadership face lower productivity and high turnover rates, impacting the organization’s bottom line.

Ethical leaders aren’t just born with these skills — they develop them over years of experience and training. 

Harvard DCE Professional & Executive Development offers a two-day Ethical Leadership program that helps leaders develop skills to make ethical choices and lead companies through challenging dilemmas. 

Topics covered include: 

• Making ethical decisions with conflicting responsibilities 
• Building a moral framework within yourself and the organization
• Understanding the role of employees in both their professional and personal lives 
• Navigating a slippery slope when seemingly good people do bad things
• Building a corporate culture that values moral behavior

Learn more about the ethical leadership program, including how to register.  

Leaders looking to expand their ethical leadership skills should also consider the two-day Authentic Leadership program , where they will learn how to develop mindfulness and authenticity to build trust, create engagement, and promote productivity. 

Explore all Executive Leadership and Management courses

About the Author

Valerie Kirk is a freelance writer and corporate storyteller specializing in customer and community outreach and topics and trends in education, technology, and healthcare. Based in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay, she spends her free time exploring nature by bike, paddle board, or on long hikes with her family.

How to Successfully Negotiate a Salary Increase

Don’t be intimidated! With some preparation, research, and practice, you can master negotiation strategies to get the salary you deserve.

Harvard Division of Continuing Education

The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

Biden’s Education Dept. starts clock on regulation that would cancel student debt for over 25 million Americans

President Joe Biden’s  latest plan  for student loan cancellation is moving forward as a proposed regulation, offering him a fresh chance to deliver on a campaign promise and energize young voters ahead of the November election.

The Education Department on Tuesday filed paperwork for a new regulation that would deliver the cancellation that Biden  announced last week . It still has to go through a 30-day public comment period and another review before it can be finalized.

It’s a more targeted proposal than the one the U.S. Supreme Court  struck down  last year. The new plan uses a different legal basis and seeks to cancel or reduce loans for more than 25 million Americans.

Conservative opponents, who see it as an unfair burden for taxpayers who didn’t attend college, have threatened to challenge it in court.

The Democratic president highlighted the the plan during  a trip to Wisconsin  last week, saying it would provide “life-changing” relief. He laid out five categories of people who would be eligible for help.

The new paperwork filed by the Education Department includes four of those categories, while a separate proposal will be filed later addressing how people facing  various kinds of hardship  can get relief.

The broadest forgiveness category would help borrowers who owe more than they originally borrowed because of runaway interest. It would eliminate up to $20,000 in interest for anyone in that situation, while those with annual incomes below $120,000 and enrolled in income-driven repayment plans would get all their interest erased with no maximum limit. It would be done automatically.

Another category would cancel loans for people who have been paying back their undergraduate student loans for at least 20 years, and those who have been paying graduate loans at last 25 years.

It would automatically cancel loans for those who went to colleges or programs considered to have low financial value. Borrowers would be eligible for cancellation if they attended a program that leave graduates with earnings no better than those with a high school diploma, for example, or programs that leave graduates with large shares of debt compared with their incomes.

Borrowers who are eligible for other federal forgiveness programs but haven’t applied would also get loans erased. Federal education officials would use existing data to identify those people and offer relief. It’s intended to reach those who don’t know about other programs or have been deterred by  complicated application processes .

The proposal was hashed out over the course of several hearings as part of a federal rules process that gathers advice from outside experts. The plan was drafted with the help of students, college officials, state officials, borrower advocates and loan servicers.

During that process, advocates pushed for a fifth category of forgiveness for people who have different kinds of hardship that prevent them from being able to repay their loans. The Education Department said it’s still working on the details of that rule, with a separate proposal to come “in the coming months.”

The department said the hardship proposal will offer cancellation to borrowers who are at high risk of defaulting on their loans along with those who face other hardships, including high medical and caregiving expenses. That proposal will mirror one agreed upon by outside experts during the rulemaking process, the agency said.

It usually takes months for a proposed rule to be finalized, and months more before it can take effect. The Biden administration said it plans to start implementing some parts of the new proposal as soon as this fall, using the education secretary’s authority to implement rules early in certain cases.

Republicans are staunchly opposed to any broad student loan cancellation, saying it’s an unfair bailout for people who went to college.

“Where is the relief for the guy who didn’t go to college but is working to pay off the loan on the truck he takes to work?” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “What about the woman who paid off her student loans but is now struggling to afford her mortgage? Instead the Biden administration is sticking these Americans with the bill of someone else’s student debt.

Two coalitions of  Republican states  have sued the Biden administration to block a separate repayment plan that offers an accelerated path to loan forgiveness.

The White House says it’s confident the new plan is on solid legal ground, saying the Higher Education Act gives the education secretary the power to waive student loans in certain cases.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s  standards  for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at  AP.org .

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• Author Rights
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

• JOLE 2023 Special Issue
• Editorial Staff
• 20th Anniversary Issue
• The Evolution of Inclusive Leadership Studies: A literature review

Herb Thompson and Gina Matkin 10.12806/V19/I3/R2

Introduction

The current state of diversity affairs, both in the US and globally, urges for a renewed emphasis on diversity scholarship, diversity principles, and leadership practices that better facilitate inclusion. Organizations, communities, and certainly educational institutions are all shuffling to better understand how to manage this most pressing 21 st century dilemma, namely, diversity (Angelides et al., 2010; Lewis, 2016; Shore et al., 2018; Terenzini et al., 2001). Diversity, along with its surrounding constructs, (i.e. culture, multiculturism, intercultural relations) seems the likely emphasis for scholarship in this domain of issues in equity. With many campuses currently experiencing a boom in enrollment by diverse populations, still this increase has not been met with adequate practices and the necessary climate to match it (Pedersen & Pope, 2010; Solorzano & Yasso, 2000). Along with the demographic changes there has also come an increase in the level of inequities experienced by minoritized student populations (Harper, 2012). The work of critical theorists (Yosso, 2005; Parker & Villalpando, 2007; Theoharis, 2007) provides us with a more clear picture into the urgency for this work and the gaps that remain in the literature.

The emergent opportunity presented by the increasingly diverse student population in the US is well represented in census date (census.gov, 2020). The surge of diversity in higher education taken with the impacts of systemic educational inequities begs the question of how leadership might facilitate better inclusion on campuses in order to meet the present equity needs. Fortunately, research in the fields of social psychology, management, multicultural, human resources, leadership, management psych, and educational leadership have all contributed significantly to our understanding of leadership styles that might benefit educational organizations in this arena (Posselt et al., 2012). In the past 30 years, there has been a steadily growing number of articles published on the topic of inclusion and inclusive climates (Mor Barak, & Cherin, 1998; Pelled et al., 1999; Hornsey & Jetten, 2004; Shore et al., 2011; Randel et al., 2018). A search through a scholarly article search engine (Ebscohost), using only the topic of inclusive leadership found only 3 articles before 1990, 25 total between 1990 and 1999, 133 from 200-2009, and a total of 421 from 2010-2019. The articles on the broader topics of inclusion represent a swelling interest in the challenges faced by culturally diverse campuses nationally (see Table 1). With growing diversity in the public sector and in the educational context, there seems to a be noticeable lag in responsiveness on the part of leaders to adjust to this dynamic (Oseguera & Astin, 2004).

Publication Search Results

Differing fields have undertaken this issue of disparity resulting in new inquiries directed toward the types of leadership that might help facilitate greater inclusion contextually. These explorations have led to a current trend that emphasizes the process of inclusive leadership and its resulting climates (Rankin, 2005). Portela (2011) provides a striking motive for inclusion research stating, “[h]ere, the central function of education is to allow for the free expression and collective consideration of ideas…schools are central institutions for making democracy deliberative” (p.19). In other words, the civic challenges that college campuses are experiencing might well be the very function they must serve to better prepare citizens for civic engagement and positive change. The deliberative function of democracy hinges on the ability of its citizenry to navigate differences with a common good in mind (Portela, 2011, p. 14). It is understandable that many perceive these “differences” as an obstacle to inclusion as they can be challenging to negotiate and potentially problematic where civic discourse and engagement are concerned. It has been suggested that in order to overcome this obstacle it is necessary to develop a more complex understanding of differences, how we experience them, and how to adapt to others (Bennet, 2004; Hammer, 2008). This is asserted as a way to better navigate toward meaningful inclusion in any context, certainly in the civic arena as well. The literature demonstrates the expansive benefits of inclusion, both for the individual as well as the society an individual belongs to (Brewer, 1991; Mor Barak & Cheri, 1998; Nishii, 2013; Spreitzer, 1995). It appears that diversity has expanded in many different organizations but there often remains a severe lack of inclusion in those same environments for factulty/staff in addition to student bodies. When examining the importance of inclusion research, it is necessary to also examine the absence of these practices which results in an opposing outcome of inclusion; namely exclusion. Jones et al. (2016) provide a clear connection between exclusion and resulting psychological and physical health; these authors detail how both overt and subtle discrimination operate to negatively impact the physical and psychological health of those targeted (p.1604). In simple terms, the stakes are very high when diversity is an organizational component and when inclusion is a stated goal.

Theoretical Conceptual Framework

This literature review explores the relevant inclusion scholarship in order to provide a more comprehensive review of inclusive leadership from its theoretical foundations to the current state of this construct academic literature. The study will aim to examine inclusive leadership from a variety of disciplines in order to better assess its potential usefulness. A special emphasis will be placed upon inclusive leadership in the educational context. This was done for several reasons, educational research, 1) has shown the longest history of publication related to this issue, 2) has provided the highest publication count in the area (inclusive leadership), and 4) has a context that shows a direct need for inclusive leadership practice (Mayrowetz & Weinstein,  1999; Strike 1999; Riehl, 2000).

In adding to this evolving dialogue, our aim is to better prepare other educational leadership scholars who will continue this work into the future. We utilized a modified version of the literature review strategy suggested by Waitoller and Artiles (2013). This adjusted process is summarized in Table 2.

Review Process (adjusted from Waitoller & Artiles, 2013)

In adopting an inductive method of review, it became a necessity to organize and funnel the focus of inquiry more directly. In order to help for a cogent theme to emerge, we applied four research questions to position the article content within the scope of this study (assess the development of inclusion research). The questions were derived from Pierce and Newstrom’s framework for leadership (2011, figure 1).

• RQ1: What does this publication suggest to us about the role of leader in the outcome of inclusion ?
• RQ2: What does this publication suggest to us about the role of follower in the outcome of inclusion ?
• RQ3: What does this publication suggest to us about the role that context plays in the outcome of inclusion ?
• RQ4: What does this publication suggest to us about the process leaders engage in toward the outcome of inclusion ?

Figure 1.   Leadership Framework (Pierce & Newstrom, 2011)

Using the 5 components in the framework, 1) leader, 2) follower, 3) process, 4) outcome, and 5) context, we are better situated to conclude with an analysis of both the foundation and current state of inclusive leadership. We review the findings by decades as they each provided a very clear and distinct theme from within the literature.

The first step of this process was to dentify a relevant pool of publications. Articles were selected using the two academic publication search engines (Ebsco Host, Ebsco Education Source). This was followed by a more targeted search of the top journals for leadership (e.g, Leadership, Journal of Leadership Studies, Journal of Management Studies, etc). Search terms of “inclusive leadership” and “inclusion” were utilized to generate the data. An additional dive into the the top educational administration journals (e.g., Education Administration Quarterly, Educational Researcher, Review of Educational Research, etc). From this initial process, 102 publications were identified and added and sifted in the next step.

The second step was to provide priority publication for each research decade that would then be analyzed more in depth. The amount of publications to sift through increased by decade with thr 1990s total going from twelve, the 2000s from thirty-three, and the final research decade (2010-2019) had fifty-seven to review.  The third step involved taking the sequentially separated publications and stratifying them to identify the ten exemplar publications. The pool of publications for each decade were narrowed down to ten priority articles based on the following criteria, 1) relevance to the development of Inclusive Leadership, 2) relevance to practice or process of Inclusive Leadership. The list was limited to the ten most relevant for each decade in order to allow the researchers to review the significant studies from each decade in greater detail. The fourth step to the review was to take the thirty priority publications and assess them for the following elements; 1) publication type, 2) field of srtudy, 3) relevance to research questions, and 4) leadership framework emphasis. The final step was to identify the graduated themes for each research decade in order to better represent the foundation and formation of Inclusive Leadership as a concept.

Research Decade #1 (1990-1999): Nascent

Some interesting observations can be made with a cursory view into the makeup of the articles that span this Research Decade (RD). There is not much mention of inclusive leadership as a focus during this RD nor was there any clear evidence of its emphasis in educational research. The ten exemplary articles reviewed from this period were from the fields of education, social psychology, management, and social work. Much of the research in this time frame centered on transformational leadership (Qi et al., 2019) which also reflects the dominant leadership focus of those years. This RD is difficult to examine given the relatively limited number of available articles and the sparse references to inclusion as a construct. It would not form more fully as a cogent term until the second RD. Deeper analysis of the articles in isolation allowed for further confirmation of the themes that emerge as RDs were group and probed deeper.

It seems that social psychology can be attributed with laying the foundation of what would later become Inclusive Leaderhsip more formally. In the early 1990s social psychologists were becoming more and more focused on the internal definition of the person at the expense of sufficient emphasis on the importance of social identity (Brewer, 1991). Brewer is credited as the first to provide a sufficient model to explain why some behaviors of identity are not isolated to individualistic tendencies. It was the stance of this researcher to examine how a person moves their identity to who they are as me or “I” to a selected identity shared with a group or “we” (1991, p. 476). The potential relevance to educational leadership should be noted here as schools provide the primary context of socialization for the youth of America. The classroom is arguably the most important context for diversity acclimation as no other institution is more responsible for student identity and shared identity learning (Rankin, 2005; Cabrera, 2012). Brewer’s work in the optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT) built upon Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and uniqueness theory (Snyder & Fromkin, 1980) to provide the necessary rivulet of research that will grow over the decades to follow. As Brewer (1991) puts it, “[s]ocial identity can be viewed as a compromise between assimilation and differentiation from others” (p.477). This theory-building article examines how a person’s need for acceptance can be oppositional to that person’s active need to be valued as unique from others. This connection can be made very clearly to the educational leadership context as it is here that teachers/leaders assist students trying to both 1) belong to the group, and 2) simultaneously strive to stand out from their peers (Brewer, 1991).

In the introduction to the framework of ODT, Brewer (1991) explains how personal needs for uniqueness and for belongingness interact exclusively in social settings. The primary claim of ODT is that the identity individuals form socially can be understood as “a reconciliation of opposing needs for assimilation and differentiation from others” (Brewer, 1991, p.475). The most significant contribution of this seminal work is the development of the optimal distinctiveness model. Depicted in figure 1 is the proposed interaction of needs of assimilation and differentiation. An innovative addition to the canon of social psychology, this opposing process model provides a firm foundation that will assist in explaining the part leadership plays in establishing an inclusive environment. ODT will go on to inform much of the assumptions that build into inclusive leadership studies that follow in RD2 and RD3.

Figure 2.  Optimal Distinctiveness Model (Brewer, 1991, p.477)

It was in this same period that other fields began to address the relevance of inclusion as a viable phenomenon to study. One of the first to empirically test dimensions and scales of inclusion, Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998) attempted to provide a continuum spanning from inclusion to exclusion in the workplace. Their studies provided a significant step forward in the comprehension of organizational acceptance. It was becoming clear that a “bridge” concept was missing in the existing framework of diversity and the desirable outcomes diversity might offer. The inclusion-exclusion continuum was presented as a means for explaining why people might move into a more involved organizational stance. Their emphasis on employee contribution will prove to be a hallmark of later inclusion studies and is advanced here as a predictor of successful organizational diversity (Shore, et al., 2011, p.1269). The work of these researchers and a few others provide a fitting summary of the work done in this particular research decade. We term this RD the Nascent section as this decade defines a period where formal inclusive research began. The graduated theme of this decade was titled, “Benefits of Inclusion for followers”.

Research Decade #2 (2000-2009): Formative

At the turn of the century academic attention pivots squarely to the topic of diversity and its place in societal priority. In this RD from 2000-2009, a concerted effort is applied to defining the problems triggered by diversity and the attempts to facilitate it effectively. Researchers appear in a hurry to identify processes of inclusion and simultaneously form strategies that will most efficiently facilitate it. This target and energy shift would evidence a phase transition in the evolution of this young theoretical field. The term “inclusion” will not be a central one for some time and was not widely recognized as a construct of interest in education until the third RD. Of the ten exemplar articles reviewed from this decade, half emphasized the process component of the leadership model (Pierce & Newstrom, 2011). This shift in focus should not be overlooked as it represents a significant change in the approach, research questions, and results that built in this decade. In educational circles this highlights the focus on institutional systems that either help or hinder inclusion (Cunningham, 2015). It is evident that there was a growing urgency to understand the phenomenon of inclusion as a process and thereby extend the conclusions of the 1990s. In RD1, merit of inclusion was established as an experience of followers and an outcome of social groups, but in RD2 we now see that there is an emphasis on the systems in place that induce either inclusion or exclusion. The results reveal this significant shift in content emphasis and the increased breadth in field type. In applying the research questions to the priority articles a focus on processes of leadership inclusion was descovered and resulted in the graduated theme of “Actions of Inclusion.”

Early in this decade of research, there is a less obvious connection that could be drawn to the field of communication and multicultural studies. The work of Bennett (2004) and Hammer (2008) will be important to note as they both contribute significantly to the broad effort shared by later inclusion researchers. The work of these two researchers (and others who would follow the tradition of their work) resulted in a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity, or DMIS (Bennett, 2004), and a well-respected instrument to measure this more complex perspective called the Intercultural Development Inventory (Hammer, 2008). Together, these two steps in intercultural communication studies provide a very promising bridge to the gap of inclusion research between leadership and education research.

Concurrent to the work being done by Bennett and Hammer, others were also working to articulate the experience of minorities and to identify the reach of diversity studies. The work of Brewer (1991) was revisited by authors Hornsey and Jetten (2004) in their review of the opposing needs articulated through ODT. This work provided some suggestions on how individuals might satisfy the needs of both inclusion and uniqueness. While little scientific basis was explicitly provided for their rationale, the strategies they provided allowed for greater attention and scrutiny to be applied to the “formative actions of inclusion.”  Within the review these authors present eight strategies that are aimed to facilitate group balance in the same equilibrium introduced in RD1 by Brewer (1991). They provide four strategies to meet the need for belongingness and four to meet needs for uniqueness (provided in Table 3). No evidence of empirical tests for these strategies were found by this team in the literature. The clear pivot to the process of inclusion seems a natural outcome of the previous RD and reveals the sensible next step researchers took to understand how inclusion happens. These articles serve to mature the study of inclusion in leadership literature by emphasizing the role that leaders play in facilitating engagement while simultaneously exposing the need for educational research to speak to the area of inclusive leadership on campuses (Rayner, 2009).

Inclusion Strategies compiled from Hornsey & Jetten (2004, pp251-258)

Research Decade #3 (2010-2019): Contemporary

Researchers Shore, et al. (2011) can be credited for providing the first cogent framework of inclusion in the literature we reviewed. This team of authors focused on managerial practices that lead to inclusion and built from the work of Brewer (1991) to do so (p. 1263). The authors used this theory-building article to present a framework for inclusion (Fig 2). The authors show how they postulate four possible outcomes when considering overall group inclusion. 1) Exclusion for those whose belongingness and uniqueness needs are not met, 2) Assimilation for those who feel they belong but are not valued for uniqueness, 3) Differentiation for those who are valued for uniqueness but do not feel they belong, and 4) Inclusion for those who have both needs met. In subsequent work, Shore et al. (2018) advanced an organizational framework. The article provides an effective review of the literature before setting out to better frame the experience of inclusion as it is aided and developed by leadership. They go beyond their previous work to introduce a new model that represents an inclusive organization. As a review and theory building article, this work also provides a more in-depth analysis of leadership styles in comparison to the inclusive leader designation. It does not, however, address the intercultural competency of leaders nor the climate that might facilitate inclusion.

Figure 3.   Inclusion Framework (Shore et al., 2011)

Zheng et al. (2017) introduce several concepts that aid in announcing the benefits of inclusion. They used the concept of member contribution as a means to determine levels of perceived inclusion. Labeling assertive contribution behaviors as “taking charge”, they sought to explain how inclusion can benefit an organization. Deep level similarity, or meaning connection, is seen as a direct influence on employee willingness to take charge at work and contribute voluntarily (Zheng et al., 2017). Leaders are encouraged to facilitate this experience of deep similarity with followers to help them to identify with the group, its goal, and its work. The education stream of research touched on shared values (Strike, 1999) but not as cogently as is seen in articles within the leadership field. Weiss et al. (2018) exemplified this in their article detailing the impact of leadership behavior on follower communication and voice. The implication of this in an educational setting cannot be overstated. Teacher and administrators are together the biggest influence on the inclusive or exclusive nature experienced on campus (Luedke, 2017). Other articles from this decade serve to spread the focus of research beyond previous categories (Lewis, 2016) and to enhance the understanding of how leaders, followers, processes, outcomes, and context all interact to either inhibit or encourage inclusion (Dorczak, 2011;Weiss et al., 2018; Ovseiko et al., 2019). These studies show promise for additional research that will undoubtedly follow this contemporary section of inclusion evolution. The graduated theme of this decade is titled, “Leadership in the Process of Inclusion”.

From our analysis we were able to identify several factors of interest to the existing literature and to future research in this area. First, we were able to identify the fields that contributed significantly to the evolution of Inclusive Leadership over the span of each decade (see figure 1). From this analysis we can better see which disciplines were central at differing stages of this theory’s development.

Figure 4.  Priority Publication Fields Compared by Research Decade

Secondly we discovered the types of articles utilized to evolve this construct over the span of these thirty years (see figure 5). This provided a sense of what the priority publications emphasized and allows for future research to provide literature to supplement the existing findings.

Figure 5.  Priority Publication Fields Compared by Research Decade

Third, we provide an analysis of emphasis these priority publications exhibited over each decade reviewed (see figures 6-8). This information is helpful to any researcher that may attempt to identify gaps in the evolution of the theory as well as those seeking to add to the current understanding of Inclusive Leadership with model specific and targeted research. Our final finding is evident in the graduated themes that emerged upon deeper investigation of the research decades spanning 1990-2019. These themes provide possibly the most helpful insight to both researchers and practictioners alike in that they allow for a sweeping glance of what we found to be the instrumental aspects of Inclusive Leadership study over its relatively short life span.

Figure 6.  Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD1

Figure 7.   Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD2

Figure 8. Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD3

In reviewing the literature on Inclusive Leadership spanning 30 years in a very important period of the American timeline, it is evident that inclusion has climbed into the popular consciousness. At this stage of the evolution in this discipline, caution should be heeded as it appears there are connections that need to be made between various fields, all working diligently to answer the pressing questions of inclusion. The fields of social work, social psychology, leadership, diversity, management, human resources, special education, educational leadership, administrative science, and communication have all contributed in varying degrees to this query yet there does not seem to be a strong enough collaboration between shared scholarship. A systematic review of inclusion research seeks to catalogue the development of concepts in the various areas in order to extrapolate shared themes as well as complementary concepts. Lewis (2016) examines how power “happens” epistemologically and asserts that there is a clear need to better understand how leadership impacts the overlap of inclusion and activism. The author states, “the concept of action-oriented leader for inclusive education emerged from this evolution of managerial to distributed to transformative styles of leadership” (Lewis, 2016, p. 336). The importance of leadership is undeniable, and it is interesting to note that it took until the late RD3 before most disciplines began to assign significance to it by way of published articles.

It should be noted that we are in a time of expanding interest in diversity and inclusion on campuses and with that comes a strong push for research related to these concepts (Raynor, 2009). Lewis (2016) further explains that despite the efforts of society to reduce discrimination and its negative effects, “segregation practices have increased in the United States” (p. 330-331). The author states that, “[i]nclusion is about more than equal distribution of resources; it is about equal access and the full participation of historically marginalized groups” (p. 336). While incredibly helpful as a directional statement for research, this highlights the greatest current issue in the present evolution of inclusion research: how? How do educators and educational administrators facilitate inclusive leadership practices in this present and critical moment. The work of Hammer (2008) provides the most promising response to this gap in the present inclusion development. It is clear that a system is needed to both explain and expand leaders’ ability to identify and appreciate group members’ differences. Lewis (2016) added, “[a]lthough leadership roles of the early 2000s remained focused on building relationships and sharing power, reform efforts highlighted schools, not systems, as the unit of analysis” (p. 332). It seems many researchers have resorted to a stance of conclusion that “leaders must…” but instead of providing specifics on what they should do, there is an emphasis on what they should accomplish. This is a gap that is easy to miss if there is not adequate attention applied to all elements of the leadership framework provided by Pierce and Newstrom (2011). The gap of action versus outcome is problematic for this reason; raised expectations without raised explanation of internal and external processes will inevitably lead to failure and disappointment (Harris III & Bensimon, 2007). It is the opinion of these authors, therefore, that leadership pre-dispositions should be analyzed in more depth as a priority in this field. The research of Bennett (2004) and Hammer (2008) provides a helpful foundation from which to begin.  The DMIS and IDI provide a developmental focus that might provide both leaders and followers with the necessary awareness and tools to better negotiate the needs of belongingness and uniqueness in a the classroom. We know that this context can serve to meet these needs but because of the work of the researchers studied, we know it can also restrict their fulfillment. Future research should seek to forge a strong connection between the work of multicultural/intercultural studies and inclusion research.

The final area of discussion on this review relates to future efforts to examine the evolution of this construct. It is clear that the field would benefit from a meta-analysis of Inclusive Leadership to better situated it in relation to historical happenings over this time and to more accurately assess what aspects of Inclusive Leadership are yet to be studied. There are many benefits to this approach and no shortage of indicators from this present study. As an example, we note in the third research decade that the “consequences” component of the leadership framework (Pierce & Newstrom, 2001)  accounted alone for half the priority publications for that span in its development. Consider also that the component of “follower” does not occur at all, which should be considered in a meta-analysis of this evolving leadership area. Does the emphasis on consequences reveal a trend toward institutional measurement of diversity climate? Were the political swings of this decade a potential reason for an absence of follower focus within publications at that time?  A meta-analysis of the literature borrowing from the adapted system we present here would allow for more general connections and insights to be gleaned.

As was mentioned in the introduction, the national discourse highlights the significant civic challenges we face in our societal development and identity formation. The increased recognition of new and important dynamics of difference has helped to position inclusion as a critical component in the ongoing process of valuing and integrating these differences in all contexts. The college campus might be the ideal environment to both investigate and refine the process of inclusion as it provides the most sensible avenue to prepare individuals for positive/effective civic discourse and engagement. It remains true that there are real challenges to this effort of inclusion. When differences are denied it can produce citizenry who are wary of others that are not like them, resulting in some of the red lining practices that we know have wrought drastic social consequences. When differences are viewed and modeled as polarizing forces it can be expected that they will trend toward creating civic conflict rather than productive understanding. When society minimizes differences we tend to mute the numerous benefits they actually bring to the educational and civic context. This review has also highlighted the function that inclusion can serve in all contexts. It also demonstrates that colleges can model and encourage this important dynamic. In the preamble to the US constitution our national goals are clearly stated. We are all striving to form a more perfect union; civic engagement, we know, is established as the social function reserved to promote and ensure that ultimate output. Inclusion, it seems, best provides us the sensible process to facilitate a more perfect union. This is especially true because there are so many voices that need to be considered and represented in the vast tapestry of our national landscape. When this happens, we have every reason to expect positive change. We can expect that individuals will experience personal acceptance and positive personal distinction. We can expect that nationally we will learn how to accept differences as we experience them and adapt to them in countless healthy and meaningful ways.

Authors’ Note: The following articles are priority publications included in the review but not included in the Reference section as they were not specifically mentioned in this article.

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