Successful School Principals Balancing Ethical, Personal and Collective—A Norwegian Case

Abstract

Over the past two decades, there has been extensive research into what constitutes successful school principal leadership under the assumption that leaders’ practices are significant and context-dependent on their school organization. By investigating how successful principals balance their personal ethical leadership dispositions and their intention of sharing leadership, this paper aims to contribute to the knowledge of how school principals need to balance the ethical, personal, and collective as the top leader of the school. Findings from the interviews suggested that a central aspect in the Norwegian school principals’ characteristics of their leadership practices is student wellbeing and collaborative effort for school quality and student learning. Norwegian successful school principals seem to be relatively unaware of aspects of power use in their leadership practices. Dilemmas arise in the complexity of ensuring individual and collective effort and responsibility for the school to function in accordance with the societal mandate.

1. Introduction

Although successful principals seem to adopt similar practices across countries, these practices are highly context-dependent [1]. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge about successful school principalship [2] in a Norwegian context. At the center of each school’s mission and overall aim, the responsibility is to direct all work at all levels in the school toward students’ learning, social development, and wellbeing. The realization of this mandate is the responsibility of every professional school actor. However, the principal, as the top leader of the school, has a special responsibility to ensure that the school functions in accordance with society’s mandate [3]. Leading a school can be challenging at multiple levels. Research has identified the importance of principal leadership when dealing with the dynamics among external policy expectations, reform implementation, and leading the school in the interplay with the local community [4]. This study aims to investigate how successful principals within the current Norwegian education policy context of reform implementation use their personal leadership resources related to ethical leadership [5] to build leadership practices for students’ learning and wellbeing.

International ISSPP research has studied successful principals for two decades [6,7,8], and extensive research and discussions have been conducted on the achievement of success in different contexts (e.g., [1,2,6,7,8]). ISSPP can be viewed as the widest-ranging international research project ever on school leadership and indicates that, although the theory and practice in educational leadership are emotionally, socially, and contextually dependent constructs, they can differ across countries [9]. ISSPP research over the last two decades has found that the contexts of schools led by successful principals can be described as complex adaptive systems [9]. This implies that how the principal chooses to lead might impact the school culture, practices, and structural arrangement for facilitating student learning and wellbeing. Concurrently, the principal’s leadership is influenced by expectations from middle-level leaders and teachers and the dynamic interactions among the local community, students’ parents, and national policy expectations. Although numerous studies have described the practices of successful leaders, their ethical beliefs and personal resources, as well as the reason why they enact successful practices in their own contexts, have been rarely studied [5]. This gap is addressed in this study by using the perspectives from complexity theory and ethical leadership. To contribute to the increased knowledge of school leaders’ ethical values and beliefs and the complexity of leading educational reform in a Norwegian education context, we ask the following research question:

What characterizes school leadership practices in a Norwegian education context within the complexity of education reform, ethical values and beliefs, and students’ wellbeing and learning?

In what follows, we describe and explain successful school leadership in a Norwegian education policy context and the theoretical framing of the analysis. Then, we present the methodological design, following an analysis and presentation of the empirical data. Finally, we present our discussion and concluding remarks.

2. Successful School Leadership in a Norwegian Educational Policy Context

Within the Norwegian ISSPP literature, the relationship between governance and school leadership positions is closely related to viewing successful leadership as being attached to a collaborative, political and democratic perspective. In addition, research has positioned school leadership within a combination of local, national, and global political and cultural environments [9,10]. In Norway, there has been a long tradition of emphasizing the role of educational institutions in the process of maintaining the values of social democracy and equity [11]. During the 1980s and 1990s, Norway, as many other countries, was increasingly influenced by new public management (NPM) logics. Currently, the democratic mandate in schools, which has been of high importance, is also under pressure because of influences of managerial accountability and accountability-based policies over the last decades [12].

Although Norwegian research on school leadership underscores that school leadership is an interactive process involving many actors [11,13,14], the identification of successful or well-functioning schools involves various challenges, such as geographical location, school history, and size. Successful schools are characterized by continuous team effort, implying that these schools need many leaders at different levels [14]. Nevertheless, Norwegian school principals deal with student test data and accountability policies in different ways in seemingly similar schools [9,15]. Research has shown that school principals work under a loyalty dilemma with increasing pressure to improve student outcomes, which does not always align with other pressing local priorities, such as the diverse needs of students and student welfare [10,15]. This ethical loyalty dilemma emphasizes that the Norwegian school principals’ use of student test results does not necessarily foster professional dialogue on improving teaching and learning in diverse classroom contexts with specific student challenges [10].

National testing has been a critical governing instrument for both controlling educational quality and for improvement, which is referred to as “the dual purpose of national testing” [10,15]. For this purpose, a national quality assessment system (NQAS) was introduced in 2005. The latest Norwegian curriculum reform, the “The Knowledge Promotion 2020”, also described as LK20, entails new expectations regarding organizing schools to support student learning to accommodate social needs in the future and is understood as an increased focus on values. In addition, the curriculum reform describes policy expectations regarding school principals being responsible for maintaining a good professional community to foster school development. The reform underlines the significance of school leadership for developing collective learning within and across school levels. The principal is responsible for making this collective dynamic learning happen and that the students’ wellbeing at school is part of the learning processes by ensuring that the students are participating in how to learn and how to be assessed.

3. Theoretical Perspectives

We make use of theoretical perspectives on complexity theory for providing a lens to understand the phenomenon we are discussing [16]. Complexity theory is relevant to understanding how schools are dynamic, policy influenced but not determined, relational, and where development is understood as ongoing complex interactions within different and across layers of the larger system [16,17]. Views of leadership in complexity theory suggest that the relationships among different elements such as school leadership, student wellbeing, and student performance are not always rational, predictable, deterministic, or linear, but more spontaneous, evolving, and self-organizing [16]. In this study, we understand leadership as influencing and showing directions [18] and being able to lead collective processes and contribute to creating meaning with the direction the school as an organization is working toward. Within this perspective on leadership, complexity theory served as a framework to explore the principals’ understanding of the school culture and infrastructure in which the principals operate. Additionally, complexity theory served as an analytical framework to study the complex dynamics between the individual principal’s role, and the collective role of leading with middle-level leaders and other professional school actors.

Leadership is relational work that can be performed by many actors. The principal, however, has a special responsibility in leading the school’s direction in accordance with policy reforms [3] and the moral purpose of leading learning [19]. Ethical leadership refers to a way of describing the characteristics of leaders’ ethical orientations, such as the personal beliefs which leaders use as guides to morally defensible decision making [5]. Ethical leaders do what is morally right; they hold values and are aware of the complexity in conflicting values within a school’s complex internal layers as well as external societal layers. Ethical leaders create infrastructure in alignment with their values. They communicate these values frequently, are proactive, practice what they preach, and care about others [5,20]. Personal leadership resources such as ethical leadership help explain why and how successful leaders behave as they do [5].

In addition, the moral values related to equity and social justice, along with professional values, are considered important in the construction of ethical leadership. Seeing leadership as both a practice and a moral purpose emphasizes the importance of individual ethical dispositions in the individual principal, as well as that of creating room for leadership as a practice performed by many school actors in collaboration. In this study, we investigate the practices of successful principals within the analytical framework of ethical leadership, acknowledging the personal resources of successful leaders leading within the complexity of influence in the layers of the educational system and of creating room for leading together with middle-level leaders in the school organization [16].

4. Methodology

This qualitative study [21,22] is part of the international multi-level mixed methods design within the ISSPP project. The empirical data are part of an ongoing research project on successful principalship in a Norwegian context, were collected in 2021 and comprised individual interviews with four school principals in two upper secondary schools and two primary schools in Norway. The interviews were conducted in two phases. We delved into how the principals understand and describe their leadership practice within the complexity [16] of mutual influence from internal and external organizational and policy levels. We did not aim to conduct any comparative analysis regarding school level, gender, or experience. We merely aimed to identify similarities and differences in the informants’ stories about leadership in the Norwegian education context, where we investigated the complexity in education reform, ethical values and beliefs, and students’ wellbeing and learning. Norway is a small country, and as our aim was not to emphasize the local (micro) school context or contribute to the knowledge field regarding gender issues, we, due to anonymity, gave all informants the female gender. In

Table 1. Overview of the informants and case schools.

	Principal 1	Principal 2	Principal 3	Principal 4
School	Valley Upper Secondary school 900 students. Age 16–18. Vocational with supplementary study programs qualifying for higher education	Uptown Upper Secondary School. 1200 students. Age 16–18. Study Programs qualifying for higher education, Supplementary sports subjects	Green Forest Primary School. 250 Students, Age 6–12. Public compulsory	Blue Ocean Primary School. 270 students, Age 6–12. Public suppplementary special needs section
Experience	10 years, Master’s degree in Educational Leadership	9 years, Masters’s degree in Educational Leadership	10 years, Master’s degree in Educational Leadership	6 years, Master’s degree in Educational Leadership
School Context	Good reputation, high number of applicants	Good reputation, strong and proud history, identity	Good reputation, awarded for green environment	Good reputation, long lasting stability and student well-being

we provide an overview of the informants and case schools.

The questions guiding the interviews were based on the revised interview protocols in ISSPP. The main themes in these protocols focus on biography, school context, and principals’ contribution to success.

Schools of different sizes operating within different phases of education, together with statistical information acquired from the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, constituted the purposeful sampling [23]. Principals from schools in the northern, western, and eastern parts of Norway were chosen for diversity and variety among the informants. Diversity was also emphasized through the selection of two primary and two upper secondary schools. For the upper secondary schools, two quality criteria were chosen: increasing number of retaining students and above average grades in central subjects. In addition, the selected upper secondary schools had a good reputation, which was validated by the increasing numbers of students applying for admission to the school. The primary schools were selected based on data from the National Assessment System, which includes a student–parent survey about students’ learning outcomes and experiences of wellbeing and belonging. Data from these surveys were related to the schools’ reputation.

Each interview lasted about one and a half hour. The first transcription of the interviews was part of the first-time coding in which the purpose was to identify similarities and differences in principals’ histories of leadership practices within the complexity of educational reform, ethical values and beliefs, and students’ wellbeing and learning. Data coding and analysis followed an iterative process of inductive and deductive coding by following the thematic order of the interview guide, being partially concept-driven but also data-driven, as codes were developed through reading of the material [24,25]. The next step was to analyze the interviews. The analysis and interpretations were discussed with other researchers as part of the communicative validity process [24]. Although the findings are not generalizable, the analysis and discussion provide transparency and thereby offer an abstract and analytical understanding of a specific phenomenon [24], namely the characteristics of school leadership practices within the complexity in education reform, ethical values and beliefs, and students’ wellbeing and learning.

5. Results

The analysis revealed three interconnected elements: personal dispositions, resources, and leadership practices. The first one was related to expressed personal values, beliefs, and actions; the second was related to infrastructure; and the third was related to professional values and care. Principal 1 and Principal 2 were from upper secondary schools, and Principal 3 and Principal 4 were from primary schools. All findings and analysis were related to educational leadership with the backdrop of complexity and context, where a current national curriculum reform and a global pandemic were ongoing.

5.1. Principal Personal Dispositions for the Complexity of Leadership: Values, Beliefs, and Actions

5.1.1. Upper Secondary School Principals

Prior to her current position as a principal, Principal 1 was an assistant principal for a few years. She needed some time to decide on applying for the principal position, thinking that her ultimate responsibility in the principal’s role was to fill the gap between the assistant principal and principal. Her father used to be a principal, so she knew that this role demanded considerable work and responsibilities. However, she had grown up acknowledging the moral purpose of leading schools. Principal 2 had diverse positive experiences prior to her principal role, such as being a student at a good school, a leader in the Teachers Union, and a teacher and a project leader in the Pedagogical Competencies Project in the county. She still felt that her pedagogical background significantly influenced her decision-making.

Both Principal 1 and Principal 2 described their values as principals in similar ways, as hugely dedicated and concerned with the students’ learning and wellbeing. Principal 1 sincerely wished for the students to be proud of their vocational education. She was also highly concerned about involving the local community for dialogue about the purpose of the school and how the local community integrates the students after they have finished their vocational education and how local businesses integrate the students as apprentices.

Principal 2 expressed that her wish of wellbeing in meeting everyone in the school with trust and an open mind would be recognized, and that she as a principal would practice what she preached, being a proactive role model for ethical conduct within the school community. She was highly concerned about having regular meetings with the students, something that the students’ interviews at the same school confirmed. The students also said that “every student” knew her because she was very visible walking around in the school and talking to the students. In the leadership team meetings, she had regular input regarding the importance of the students’ wellbeing. She expected the middle-level leaders to do the same in their meetings with the teachers. Both Principal 1 and Principal 2 did not only work with middle-level leaders but also wished to build good relationships with the teachers as they are the most important for students. Both principals in the two upper secondary schools underlined wellbeing, trust, and good relationships as some of the most important leader responsibilities they had. They both reflected on how they could facilitate the teachers’ contribution to the students’ wellbeing and learning.

The most important influence we have on students’ wellbeing happens in the classroom. I must give the teacher and department leaders ‘room’ and trust, so their leadership and dedication are able to build strong relations. I expect them to wish every student at our school well.

(Principal 1)

5.1.2. Primary School Principals

Principal 3 from Green Forest Primary School had a history as an elected teacher union representative with experience and knowledge of rules and regulations and teachers’ rights. This experience gave her legitimacy toward teachers. She grew up in a generational home with a big family, with lots of love in her childhood having formed her in her adult working life. Originally, Principal 3 wanted to help people as a psychiatric nurse or psychologist. When growing up, she spent considerable time listening to her grandmother talk about life, and she loved being a listener, especially fascinated by the mystery of mind. She never planned to be a leader but noticed that she was happy to talk in big crowds and to take responsibility when something in her path needed to be done by a group of people. In general, her caring for teachers, other employees, parents, local community, as well as children made her what she was today and inspired her on her path as a leader. She wanted to be a pedagogical leader in charge of a glowing and collaborative learning community. She believed in collective leadership and was aware of the power and its potential misuse that lies in both formal and informal leadership responsibilities: “Of course, I like to influence, but if it’s the power you want. I think that’s a scary thing”.

Principal 4, from Blue Ocean Primary School, described her process of being a principal as being a coincidence. She described it as the “time was just ready” when the vacancy for the principal at this school was announced. There was no recruiting process but a position that she simply applied for and received in competition with other applicants. Her knowledge of the school and her positive reputation were influential to some extent but not crucial for her when she applied. When approaching the teachers, she always emphasized that she came from a “totally non-academic family”. Earlier, she was not ambitions to be a leader, but when she took the master’s degree in educational leadership, she became interested in leading:

And then it [the master’s degree in educational leadership] became a path towards something that has a slightly open end. And here I am, sitting now. It was a very nice journey. More of a personality development.

(Principal 4)

She underlined that, as a leader, it was important for her that both the students and the staff participated in crucial decision-making. For her, the students’ voices were crucial for their wellbeing, and she tried to build trust through dialog with the student council:

I try to use the dialog to gain trust and respect. I am an easy talker, and I think I successfully reach my goals to achieve trust both among the students and the staff through dialog. Although the leadership role is prejudged by old expectations of a top-down steering.

(Principal 4)

The primary school principals emphasized that a pedagogical approach to their leadership is crucial to develop a professional community and to amplify a common understanding of how to work with the students’ wellbeing in the classrooms and in the school overall. Both principals described the importance of values. During the interviews, they communicated a difference in their approach to values. Principal 4 pointed out that the principals at her municipal level discussed a common understanding of values, but that her own values were particularly based in engagement toward the students’ wellbeing. Principal 3’s understanding of the term values was connected at the individual level and how they were expressed in the student–teacher relationships.

5.2. Complexity of Infrastructure and Cultures

5.2.1. Upper Secondary Principals

Principal 1 worked on the infrastructure of the schoolhouse building to make it a place where the students felt welcomed (e.g., making the entrance area grand and welcoming with a lot of sitting places and a café and library as central meeting areas for all students). She ensured that the school had excellent teachers, middle-level leaders, and other staff focusing on student learning and development. She wanted to facilitate the students’ learning environment and ensure that they were proud of their craft. During the lockdown under the pandemic, many students felt lonely, and she felt the need to help them “come back” to school. Many students were living in challenging environments, and one of her aims as a principal was to increase the teachers’ competences in, for example, drug-related work. This was done to avoid dropouts. In addition to the teachers, Principal 1 also employed other staff both for students’ wellbeing and for facilitating learning. She engaged several social teachers/workers in working for the students’ wellbeing and decreasing the number of dropouts after the lockdown. She reconstructed the infrastructure of the building, ensuring that the social workers, school nurses, and psychologists were situated close to the students, and they could easily contact these support resources.

Time and economics are obstacles for school development. To have social teachers/workers and expert resources in school is not required by law, it is a choice I made. It’s about prioritizing. I use for example the local library as the main library for the school, the students can reuse their textbooks.

(Principal 1)

Principal 2 was highly concerned with developing teachers’ professional learning. For her, an important part of her job was to facilitate the development of good teachers in professional learning groups. In relation to the current national curriculum renewal reform, she redesigned structures in her school. Together with the middle-level leaders, she re-established the leadership team around three interdisciplinary topics, which was a new policy expectation in the reform.

Both Principal 2 and Principal 1 underlined the importance of care leadership and a well-functional group of middle-level leaders to facilitate students’ learning and develop a professional community among the teachers. Principal 2 described how she experienced her leading the middle-level leaders, as follows:

Even though we are a group of leaders, I experience every day that I also lead them. I try to be strategic in my leadership. That involves what I say and how I express what is important for me. I lead in everything I do.

(Principal 2)

5.2.2. Primary School Principals

When asked about her contribution to structures and cultures in the school organization, Principal 3 emphasized being a role model in both these aspects. For example, she mentioned how, during the pandemic, half of the teachers and students in one period were at school, and in other periods, the school was totally locked down. During this time, Principal 3 went to work daily to show that she was available and responsible on site:

You must be a good [role] model yourself. I was not sitting at home. I did not have a home office. I could have had a home office but did not. How can you trust the leader who is at home and then they [the teachers] are at work. To me, that is completely unreasonable.

(Principal 3)

Principal 4 underlined the importance of structuring meeting points to facilitate collaboration among the different professions in the school and how her trust lay within these structures. She opened up to cooperate with the teacher union and a group of selected teachers to participate in crucial decisions for the schools’ professional community: “Then I try to be completely open about most things, and give them insight and co-determination on everything imaginable, which they can gain insight into. I think they really appreciate that”.

She emphasized that the pandemic period also brought in technology through which the school gained new and important knowledge about digital education:

If we haven’t experienced the lock down, we wouldn’t be a part of the digital revolution in education that quickly. The teachers adapted the new devices and the use of them in a pedagogical way, impressively. A new culture developed.

(Principal 4)

5.3. Principal Care, Professional Values, and the Complexity of Leading in and from the Middle

5.3.1. Upper Secondary Principals

Principal 1’s professional values were related to pride and wellbeing for all middle-level leaders and teachers. She was dependent on the leadership team and described it as fantastic. She said that the school was successful because of the great effort of department heads, and that the teachers wanted to work to create a very good school for student learning. She said, “Our success is built on wellbeing, without wellbeing, no learning, or at least, reduced conditions for learning”. She underlined the importance of the teachers and that her focus as a leader was on facilitating value-building throughout the school that supported students’ wellbeing and learning. This was her moral leadership purpose. She held a high level of trust in her middle-level leaders and emphasized that they are closer to the teachers. Through their leadership, she defined herself as a principal that is close to the teachers.

To have functional teams among the teachers with transparency, spaciousness and generosity, is important for their wellbeing.

(Principal 1)

The pedagogical leadership at the Valley Upper Secondary School was affected by the vocational programs and students representing multiple socio-economic families/layers in the municipality. This diversity affected Principal 1’s engagement and care for student wellbeing. She indicated that the teachers’ and students’ wellbeing was co-related. She defined her role as a pedagogical leader as part of her responsibility to create autonomous well-functioning groups of middle-level leaders and teachers: “I delegate to the middle level leaders the responsibility of following up the school pedagogical and economical leadership within their department, and it is my professional responsibility to trust them”.

Principal 2 expressed that she frequently communicated her vision of making the school dynamic and even better than the society outside. She believed that it should be more democratic, more co-creative, and caretaking because this is the best way of creating a belief in every student that they can be influential and active citizens. This was her moral purpose as a leader. She also underlined the importance of the leadership team, and through the curriculum redesign project, which the leaders agreed on with her, she pointed out that “we are together about it, which means that we are stronger as leaders”. Although the senior middle-level leaders were the ones with appraisals and being responsible for their teachers, she also wanted to be close to the teachers and their work. She wanted to lead the middle-level leaders as well. However, she somehow felt that they had become independent and proficient leaders and that she might lose track of their pedagogical leadership and processes with their respective teams:

I try to be conscious about how I lead, and how my middle level leaders do their job in their teams and how they meet and involve the teachers. In our process of re-design, the cross-curricular themes, I experienced that some teachers made me aware of that they didn’t feel involved and heard in this project.

(Principal 2)

Principal 2 defined her role as a pedagogical and ethical leader as someone who is aware of the competencies of her middle-level leaders and gives them the trust and autonomy they need in their work. She wanted to be authentic and cooperative in her leadership, but at the same time, to be clear about her expectations. It was important for her that both the leaders and teachers remained professional and loyal to the project they agreed upon. However, she expressed that this is not always a reality. This motivated her to increase her communication regarding professional values and help develop the teachers and middle-level leaders in their work. She defined school success through her ability to build good relations, professionality in the organization, and her care for the students’ wellbeing.

5.3.2. Primary School Principals

When Principal 3 talked about the complexity of leading in and from the middle, she pointed out a lack of space for learning with other school principals. The municipality had recently undergone a merger with another municipality, which was part of a national reform of creating new regions in Norway. According to her, this merger created a situation in which the school principal meetings in the new municipality became too long, too complex, and impersonal. The lack of a professional community among the principals where they could discuss the daily challenges and learn from each other’s schools was a huge loss.

She reflected on the teachers’ wellbeing. She emphasized the importance of knowing the staff well and being “personal” in her approach to leading with commitment and motivation. She pointed out the importance of personal greetings and purposeful, emotional presence, and dedication. Another part of her professional values was directed toward students with special needs, where she was closely involved in identifying the best solutions for such students. This ethical professional leading practice was legitimatized both with the needs of individual students and with the help of the teachers who struggled with students with challenges. This was reflected in her professional value related to equity and social justice in pedagogical leadership while showing care for and creating trust among the teachers:

Special education is close to my heart. I need to know those students and know what kind of challenges they have, so that I can understand. I am present. We in the leadership team are present in all those conversations and meetings. We follow up. We’re close. How could these teachers trust us if we had never engaged with the children they are struggling with.

(Principal 3)

Principal 3 described the complexity in her leadership role as being part of three levels or arenas: administrative leader, human resources leader, and pedagogical leader. She indicated that pedagogical leadership is what she preferred to work on. She expressed a distinction between collective and individual learning processes in her teaching staff. While she claimed that the school needed to have individual expertise, she also noted that a collective competence in school needed to be provided for and altered continuously in line with changes in society. She stated that it was important that the teachers received collective professional replenishment continuously. She had great faith in common academic replenishment, instead of individual teachers “taking courses here and there and coming back one by one”. Yet again, she also supported the idea of inspiring individual teachers for their personal development.

Principal 4 stated that what inspired and energized her as a leader was simply the desire to contribute to development and change, which can ultimately influence the students’ learning outcome. According to her, the right thing to do was to develop trust between her as the principal and the teachers: “This is highly ambitious and demands a lot of me in my leadership practices. I have to trust my teachers. Trust is needed internally in the teams for them to function better or develop”. The teachers’ wellbeing was important to her, and she emphasized on the connection between students’ and teachers’ wellbeing: “It is important for me that the students have good days at school and that they thrive, and that their teachers are self-confident, and have a good time and enjoy the work they are doing”.

Her leader group involved a middle-level leader and herself. In addition, she had a department leader for the “voluntary after-school program” offered to primary school students in Norway. However, the way the leadership group was organized affected her pedagogical leadership. The number of different management systems she was expected to interact with and keep track of every day took considerable time from her pedagogical leadership: “The management and use of time has become so demanding that it interferes with what is my main mandate, namely the educational one”. In contrast, the small leader group helped her build a close relationship with the teachers. It was important for her to maintain relationships and keep order in her “own house”.

6. Discussion

In this section, we discuss the findings based on the main research question regarding what characterizes school leadership practices in a Norwegian education context within the complexity of education reform, ethical values and beliefs, and students’ wellbeing and learning. The main findings are discussed within two central themes: leading in the complex intertwining of personal dispositions and sharing leadership and leading in complex policy context and reform work.

6.1. Leading in the Complex Intertwining between Personal Dispositions and Sharing Leadership

The present research showed that the four successful principals in the Norwegian context were deeply engaged in ethical considerations when leading their schools. They communicated their personal values and ethical standards and agreed on practicing what they preached. Their professional values were connected to democracy, equity, and care for the school’s teachers and students [5,20]. The ethical dimension of leadership, which seems to function as a pervasive personal disposition of the four studied principals, aligned with how they chose to distribute and share leadership with the middle-level leaders as well as the teachers with trust and expectations. These principals appeared secure in their interpretation of the moral purpose of educational leadership [19], by being visible in the schools, as well as giving the middle-level leaders and teachers room for action through trust. However, the trust seemed to be connected to assuming that these professionals shared the moral purpose and led by the values of equity, democracy, and trust [11], which the principals articulated as important.

Leading a school is complex [16], and the principals valued different actions in their ethical leadership through measures such as structural re-structuring, walking around the school a lot, meeting the students regularly, or articulating expectations to the middle-level leaders and teachers. In relation to the reform, the policy expectations on values provided for different translations in different schools, something that gave the principals leeway in the leading practices. They showed directions [18], had expectations from the middle-level leaders and teachers, and cared for every student at school. Their personal dispositions reflected both a determination to care for the diverse needs of students and student welfare [10], with a strong expectation that the middle-level leaders agreed with these ethical values and shared these with the teachers in their leading practices. The personal leadership dispositions of caring for every student were intertwined with the values of sharing leadership.

6.2. Leading the Tensions in the Complexity of Policy Context and Reform Work

Under the previous reform LK06, accountability-based governance has been an important policy aspect, for example, through increased student testing in Norwegian schools [15]. Research has described the loyalty dilemma of increased focus on student test results and accountability pressure [10,15], which have historically challenged the work of school principals and teachers where values of social democracy and equity have been dominating [11]. This dilemma is something that the principals have had to deal with as part of NPM logics [15]. The subject renewal reform (LK20) required an increased focus on values and principles that the schools were expected to work on with their students, such as the three cross-curricular themes democracy and citizenship, public health and life mastery, and sustainable development. A question arises as to whether LK20 has widened the possibility for schools to also focus on local priorities related to student welfare and wellbeing [10,15]. In this study, all principals explicitly explained that their priorities as leaders were all students’ wellbeing and democratic participation, which indicates that they had to recreate the balance between the focus on testing and that on students’ wellbeing and participation [10].

An important aspect is to balance the dilemma between using test results as an accountability tool and as a tool for improvement, which is defined as the double or dual purpose of testing [15]. This dilemma represents a demand for school principals to translate, negotiate, and enact the national policy expectations in the curriculum reform toward increased focus on ethical values and school improvement. Another aspect that may represent a dilemma or at least a tension between the principal and the middle-level leaders and teachers is the ways in which the principals are able to balance the priorities of their own values and beliefs and their own identity as a strong disposition, expecting the middle-level leaders and teachers to follow their expressed and lived values. Simultaneously, the principals articulated that they were democratic leaders who put weight on the teachers’ opinions and influence. The school principals wanted to share their leadership practices. However, it is appropriate to question this intention when, or if, the teachers or middle-level leaders disagree with the principals’ values and intentions. On one hand, this dilemma could create tensions between ethical values connected to a democratic and collective participation-oriented leadership value and personal leadership dispositions [5]. On the other hand, tensions might occur regarding the aspects of responsibility and power to ensure that the school functions in accordance with its mandate [3].

7. Concluding Remarks

This study contributes to the knowledge of how a school principal needs to balance ethical, personal, and collective beliefs as the top leader of the school. Dilemmas arise in the complexity of ensuring individual and collective efforts and responsibilities for the school to function in accordance with the societal mandate. A central aspect of the Norwegian school principals’ characteristics of their leadership practices is student wellbeing and collaborative effort for school quality and student learning. The complexity of infrastructure and cultural aspects of society impact the practices, values, and beliefs of school principals. A central aspect to pursue in further research is the dilemma in which school principals need to deal with the national policy expectations of school quality balanced with an increased focus on ethical values and beliefs and students’ wellbeing and learning.