ABSTRACT
All the research confirmed by HMI and more recently, OFSTED, suggests that leadership in schools is the key factor in improvement and success. Our studies-and the example of Birmingham schools which have changed most in one direction or another-support that theory. And yet our contention is that leadership is extremely complex: it is simply not enough to say profoundly ‘it is all down to the headteacher’ as though one is speaking a self-evident truth and, with a shrug, affecting the inevitability and certainty of truth, walk away.
