The Research On The Paradigm Shift Of School Leadership In School Reform

In the process of school reform,the school leadership has very important meanings for the success of school reform,but the school leadership’s style,philosophy and cognitive for school reform will profoundly affect the process,direction and result of school reform.However,when we re-examine school leadership that has a significant impact on the success of the school reform, we can find their thinking is still dominated by the rational-structural paradigm,dominated by this technical view, school leaders unable lead the school reform to the final success,Instead,it is a key reason for the reform why confronted various dilemma.Therefore,this paper will focus on the problems and difficulties faced by school leaders in the school reform,the dominant leadership paradigm,and the reason and necessity for school leadership paradigm shift will be explained and analyzed,Then proposed and demonstrated a new school leadership paradigm namely strategic-systemic paradigm which can lead the school reform into success.The first part,this paper expounds on the difficulties and problems faced by school leaderships in school reform,Including the contradictions inherent in a leadership role,that is leading versus managing,resources versus demands, symbolism versus substance,the paradox of power,Sense of isolation and loneliness;Also included some new forms of these contradictions in school reform practice,such as the administrative burden further increased,the sense of competence decreased,leadership’s training programs failed,and so on. Further deduce the reason why school leaders faced with various difficulties,the fundamental reason is due to the dominant theories and models of school leadership can not provide real hope for the school reform.The second part,Based on the analysis of the current situation of school leaders,pointed out the dominant paradigm of school leaders is rational-structural paradigm,and introduces its theoretical basis and the authoritative source,analyzes the reasons why it failed,Further pointed out that this kind of leadership paradigm exists bureaucratic and technical authority hindered innovation,excessive dependence on style, obfuscated purposes and means and other defects.Therefore, in order to develop the really useful methods for school leaders in the continuous school reform,There is an urgent need to continue to explore and study the conversion issues of school leadership paradigm.The third part of the text,explained and discussed the connotation,the core and the sources of dependence authoritative of the strategic-systemic paradigm,pointed out that the strategic-systemic paradigm is the future orientation of school leadership paradigm shift is due to,the strategic-systemic paradigm emphasizes transformational change,theirs goal is to recruit followers, and based on the new authoritative source.Demonstrates the necessity for the shift of leadership paradigm and the possibility of constructing the new leadership paradigm.At the end of the paper,pointed out that the leadership paradigm shift in the context of school reform should pay attention to two warnings,the first is the danger of exaggerating the "transformationally pure", which reminds us to take the whole into consideration,but do the job bit by bit, insists combining the lofty idea with the realistic pragmatism;next is about "false clarity",that is to use an innovative form rather than its substance,and thus the reform resulting in the phenomenon of lack of the substance and moves towards to the formalization.