Building Leadership Capacity: The Norwegian Approach

This article analyzes how leadership development and preparation is conceptualised and contextualised in the national education program for newly appointed school principals in Norway. Our main focus is on exploring whether there are differing epistemological foundations of various approaches to learning-centred school leadership. Our theoretical framework is informed by a review of a variety of studies, which focus on the relationship between leadership and student learning, and by Michael Fullan’s (2001) framework for thinking about and leading complex change. As empirical basis we have selected and compared two different preparatory programs. While both programs have been granted a status as a national leadership program in Norway, they also demonstrate a variation in understanding leadership for school improvement and student learning. The findings also demonstrate some significant differences across providers with regard to perspective and the emphasis on outcomes, and questioning the extent to which the knowledge base is characterised by a combination of educational theories and research on leadership. Despite these distinctions, which are anchored in different epistemological foundations, both programmes are assumed to contribute to the implementation of a national policy for leadership development and training in Norway. Our main argument is that to understand how this is possible, it is important to trace historical and cultural patterns of social development within the Norwegian context.