Leadership and learning: paradox, paradigms and principles

This opening chapter explores the varied, and sometimes confused, interpretations of leadership for learning. As an introduction to this volume it tries of lay some of the groundwork for navigating this complex territory, drawing on international studies which bring dif-fering understandings of ‘learning’, ‘leadership’ and their intercon-nections. It suggests that there is important conceptual daylight be-tween instructional leadership and leadership for learning, the key distinction to be found in the small but highly significant conjunc-tion ‘for’. It concludes with an elaboration of five principles devel-oped in a seven country study, suggesting that these may offer a scaffolding frame to bring to the wide-ranging discussions presented in the chapters contained in this book.