Cultures of Educational Leadership: Researching and Theorising Common Issues in Different World Contexts

While the need for leadership is perhaps universal across cultures, the practice of leadership is generally believed to be culturally situated. Different views exist in the leadership literature regarding the extent to which specific leader behaviours are transferable across cultures, leading some researchers to suggest that effective management and leadership processes should normally take account of the cultural and other contexts (Ayman 1993). Linked to this is an assumption that unique cultural features, for example, language, beliefs, values, religion and social organisation, demand that different leadership approaches are taken in different nations (Dorfman et al. 1997). Increasingly however, there has been a rise in recent research on educational leadership that includes a cross-cultural element, acknowledging that in addition to culture-specific tendencies, there may be more universal or broad-based approaches to understanding and practising leadership.