Leadership tensions and dilemmas

Results from the Tasmanian Successful School Principal Project (SSPP) survey concur with the four major leadership tensions and dilemmas identified in a background literature review. These tensions and dilemmas relate to internal/external control, ethic of care/responsibility, and an emphasis on professional/personal as well as leadership/management. The results also offer new insights. These insights include differences in the effects of the tensions and dilemmas based on principal qualifications, experience and gender, school size, socio-economic status (SES) and organisational capacity, and student social and literacy/numeracy success adjusted for school SES.