Leadership and Communication for Educational Effectiveness: A Systematic Review

Hilmy Rivai

Abstract


This systematic review provides empirical and practice-specific evidence regarding the ways in which leadership and communication shape educational effectiveness across diverse educational contexts. Using PRISMA as a guide we screened and evaluated the literature, retaining 12 studies for narrative thematic synthesis. The evidence base is methodologically diverse, but dominated by cross-sectional quantitative designs with qualitative studies and course-focused contributions. Four themes emerged. For one, communication serves as a primary mechanism operating to translate leadership into staff outcomes, especially in terms of teacher wellbeing and performance. And second, digital communication technologies serve as leadership infrastructure underpinning coordination and collective efficacy that inform collaboration and technology enabled pedagogy. Thirdly, link to the learning outcomes are most often indirect and act through pedagogy, teacher leadership or teachers use of ICT. Fourth, leadership communication is embedded in accountability, legitimacy and reputational risk management in digitally visible environments. In general terms, it can be said that educational effectiveness is best conceptualised on multi-dimensional indicators and the leadership communication itself is an organisational capability that can be developed. Implications are also discussed for: improving communication routines; curation of platform governance; and research designs and measurement coherence.

Keywords


educational leadership; leadership communication; educational effectiveness; digital communication; technology leadership; systematic review

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/jap.v23i1.99844

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