American author and child psychiatrist Robert Coles wrote: “We need leaders, people who can inspire us, help shape us morally, spur us on to purposeful action.” The demands on leaders today are multifarious, disjointed, relentless and chaotic, to say the least. Yet there has never been a time when the contribution of good leaders is more urgently required.

We cannot explore the notion of leadership and being a leader unless we engage with our own personal views and understanding of the terms. Our current views about leadership impact the notion of governance; the way we relate to power and control across all levels, and the existing practices that are embedded in our system.

To engage in such a discourse, I am of the opinion that we are faced with, first and foremost, a personal challenge – the willingness to look into oneself, the values one upholds, the practices one enacts. This resonates with the “moral imperative” that Michael Fullan (2003) speaks about – it is about one’s commitment to what we do; hence we need to explore the attributes of identity, passion and meaning. Leadership is about personal, professional and collective transformation. These are not easy terms to relate to, let alone challenge and address.

Let me be clear about the way I relate to this. I am not focusing on what one expects from our school leaders – for the way our heads can truly function as leaders is very much conditioned by the way leadership is modelled at systems level. In my opinion, it is here that we have been getting it wrong.

We cannot expect educators at school level to engage differently if central authorities don’t change the way they engage with reform

We cannot expect educators at school level to engage differently if central authorities don’t change the way they engage with reform; the way they look at the notion of shared governance; of mutual responsibility; the latitude that needs to be given to schools; and the creation of support structures that truly help schools address their needs and achieve their goals.

Schools in Malta have been used to working within a system that is hierarchical, centralised and bureaucratic. Our history of educational reform practices is replete with examples of state-mandated directives creating a culture of dependency, one that requires a technicist approach to doing things.

Various local studies have shown that educators have grown weary through disillusionment and stress. School leaders and teachers constantly find themselves sandwiched between a belief in democracy and participation on one hand, and the daily experiencing of a lack of structures to function as decision-makers.

Over the years, schools have been given limited opportunity to develop into vital places of learning, into sites of professional inquiry and reflective practice. This militates against a leadership that is visionary, inspirational and strategic in nature.

Moving from the shackles of dependency to one of ‘collaborative professionalism’, a term coined by Hargreaves and O’Connor (2018), will not be easy. One cannot talk of such moves without really understanding the culture and climate that have evolved over the years which have led to the current situation and which, to a large extent, determine how people think and act.

Present conditions and circumstances of schools could not have been planned to be more antithetical to their becoming centres of inquiry and change. If we want to bring about lasting change, we need to review the way we develop and implement policies; the way our current governance structures function; how we view the role of evaluation and review; and lastly, how we view the role of our colleges and that of school leaders.

Any effort to improve the effectiveness of schools depends on an understanding of the dynamics of schools. This implies exploring the actions and influences of teachers, students, education officials, parents, community members, the curriculum, and the ways in which these influences operate.

I sincerely hope that the National Education Strategy will adopt a different approach to educational reform. Such a strategy needs to ensure that leaders working in the different levels can address the challenge of intellectual conformity, of collective blindness and nurture the collective intelligence of diverse groups.

This implies reviewing our systems of governance and how this is related to the value of trust. Then we need to move into our definition of leadership and how this is going to impact the leadership at school level to foster student achievement – both cognitive and affective.

Christopher Bezzina is a professor at the Department of Leadership for Learning and Innovation at the University of Malta’s Faculty of Education.