Educational leadership in a neo-liberal era: How leadership coaching psychology impacts principal leadership and well-being. A mixed methods study

The role of the school principal has become more complex in recent years with a myriad of new responsibilities emerging, requiring a more business/performance leadership style (Sugrue, 2014; Oplatka, 2017). Education is somewhat “under siege”, often from external economically driven forces (Deasy and Mannix-McNamara, 2017, p. 59), which have placed a strain on the role of school leaders (Sebastian et al., 2017). Education leaders are now working more akin to business managers, than leaders of teaching and learning (Machin, 2014). Neoliberalism and the drive for efficiency and performance have continued to exert influence over education (Ball, 2003; Machin, 2014; Stynes, 2014; Deasy and Mannix-McNamara, 2017). Across the business world, there have been numerous studies highlighting the benefits of leadership coaching as a means to improve both the performance and efficiency of leaders and their staff (Grant et al., 2009). In recent years, leadership coaching has made its way into the educational leadership landscape (Ogilvy and Ellam-Dyson, 2012; Gross, 2018). The recognition by the Department of Education and Skills (DES) in Ireland of leadership coaching as a means to enhance performance and support school principals, resulted in the setting up of the Centre for School Leadership (CSL) in 2015, offering leadership coaching as a free support to school principals. Looking at other jurisdictions, such as Scotland, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada, the DES sought to evaluate the success of coaching in these areas. Thus, coaching has emerged as a means to up-skill Irish principal leaders in how to deal with the new challenges of leadership, with a “more in-depth talented leader” required for today’s role (CSL, 2015, p. 1). As a new concept in Irish education, leadership coaching is relatively unknown. While coaching as a profession is still under question (Bonaiuto et al., 2008; Passmore & Fillery Travis, 2011), more research is required to assess its impact. With no research to draw on in the Irish context, or certainly very little, this research fills a gap in knowledge of the potential of leadership coaching in the Irish context. The key research questions of this research were: How does leadership coaching psychology impact on the role of school principal and also to what extent does it impact on a principal’s well-being? A pragmatic worldview framed the research with a behavioural framework (Bandura, 1978) guiding the study. A mixed method approach was used, with a quantitative survey followed by semi structured interviews. The findings provide many insights on the role of leadership coaching in education and many suggestions for its future development. In summary, the findings of this study suggest that leadership coaching does impact the role of educational leader/principal, facilitating a journey of reflective practice for leaders and those they manage. This in turn leads to a distribution of practice enabling distributed leadership, therein building leadership capacity. Furthermore, the research concludes that this process leads to enhanced well-being for both the principal/coach and the teacher/coachee. However, time, workload and creating a culture of coaching in schools is still a challenge, with leadership coaching still a new and unknown leadership concept for some.