Strategy as leadership: an alternate perspective to the construct of strategy

Since the seduction of business rhetoric into the field of education, dating back to at least to Taylorism in the early 1900s, school leaders have shaped themselves as organisational managers and leaders. Terms such as ‘strategic’ have been introduced to add misleading rhetorical weight to activities. But what do we mean by ‘strategic’? Scholarship on strategy in schools and strategic leadership by principals has tended to spike following the enactment of polices such as the Education Reform Act in the UK. This has led to a narrow perception of what it means to be strategic, and legitimised modernistic thinking entwined with Romantic ideals. In this paper, I argue the case for a new conceptualisation of strategy. Strategy as leadership puts social practice back into educational leadership. This paper was written, as is arguably the case of a special issue, to serve as the stimulus for further discussion and debate in the quest of advancing our understanding of what it means to be strategic.