Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role and leadership practices of executive leaders in English multi-academy trusts (MATs) considering the meaning of system-level leadership and its perceived impact on schools' improvement processes, conditions and culture.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper was guided by an ecological systems approach emphasizing the interactions between the micro-, meso-, macro-, exo- and chronosystems, and was used to develop context-sensitive accounts of leadership across groups of schools. It involves interview-based multi-perspective case studies using a sample of five MATs and collecting data from 31 interviews with various school and MAT leaders.

Findings

The primacy of leadership at the executive level was central to efforts for school and MAT transformation and that was evident throughout the findings of the study. System leadership was multifaceted and was understood through the multiple layers of the organizational structure of MATs. Four major domains of practice highlight the efforts of these leaders to address complex and systemic challenges. These are setting strategic directions, developing people and organizational capacity, establishing organizational infrastructure to support schools' improvement efforts and providing instructional guidance.

Originality/value

Findings reveal new empirical data about the role of executive leaders in English MATs and highlight the ways in which they seek to establish, manage and sustain school and MAT-wide improvement providing the research with a holistic idea of system leadership.

中文翻译：

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了解英语学校环境中系统级领导的复杂性

目的

本文的目的是考虑系统级领导的含义及其对学校改进过程、条件和文化的感知影响，探讨行政领导在英语多学院信托 (MAT) 中的作用和领导实践。

设计/方法/方法

本文以生态系统方法为指导，强调微观、中观、宏观、外在和时间系统之间的相互作用，并用于开发跨学校领导力的上下文敏感帐户。它涉及基于访谈的多视角案例研究，使用五个 MAT 的样本，并从与不同学校和 MAT 领导者的 31 次访谈中收集数据。

发现

行政级别领导的首要地位是学校和 MAT 转型工作的核心，这在整个研究结果中都很明显。系统领导是多方面的，可以通过 MAT 组织结构的多个层次来理解。四个主要的实践领域突出了这些领导者为应对复杂和系统性挑战所做的努力。它们包括制定战略方向、培养人才和组织能力、建立组织基础设施以支持学校的改进工作并提供教学指导。

原创性/价值

调查结果揭示了关于执行领导在英语 MAT 中的作用的新实证数据，并强调了他们寻求建立、管理和维持学校和 MAT 范围内改进的方式，为研究提供了系统领导的整体理念。