Abstract:
The high-stakes accountability that schools now often work in commonly produces internal cultures of accountability, surveillance, and toxic leadership. Much has already been written about the key issues of accountability and surveillance in education but relative to this far less work exists on the key issue of ‘toxic leadership’ in education, and particularly in compulsory education. Moreover, leadership studies often focus on the positive and optimistic sides of leadership, and its intention to serve people well. A striking issue in the existing literature that does refer to toxic leadership, however, both in and outside of the education literature, is that toxic leadership is commonly conflated with other dark conceptualisations of leadership such as destructive leadership—these are not the same concepts and should not be treated as such.
I now bring the issue of toxic leadership to the fore in this presentation, positioning it as distinct from other forms of dark leadership such as destructive leadership, and, consequently, as an issue the field needs to pay much more meaningful attention to.
I will provide a retrospective autoethnographic account by drawing on past but lasting experiences to highlight the enduring impact of toxic leadership, based on my time working as a schoolteacher in secondary schools in England. As my research is autoethnographic, it is distinctive from the typical conceptual and empirical contributions researchers make to the leadership literature—this contribution can not only supplement my own existing and future work but may pave the way for more autoethnographies from others too.
By focusing on toxic leadership, this presentation will ultimately illustrate the concerning conditions teachers in many schools are working in, and significantly, how the effects of toxic leadership can be perpetual, meaning moving schools is not always rehabilitating for teachers.
Although I will be drawing on my experiences of working in schools in England, the applicability of my study is unlikely confined to any single jurisdiction because the issues I discuss are very much global trends. Thus, it is therefore envisaged that my research will not only add to understandings of teachers’ working conditions but that it will resonate with and be of interest to many people with experience of working in schools and indeed other education institutions too.
I now bring the issue of toxic leadership to the fore in this presentation, positioning it as distinct from other forms of dark leadership such as destructive leadership, and, consequently, as an issue the field needs to pay much more meaningful attention to.
I will provide a retrospective autoethnographic account by drawing on past but lasting experiences to highlight the enduring impact of toxic leadership, based on my time working as a schoolteacher in secondary schools in England. As my research is autoethnographic, it is distinctive from the typical conceptual and empirical contributions researchers make to the leadership literature—this contribution can not only supplement my own existing and future work but may pave the way for more autoethnographies from others too.
By focusing on toxic leadership, this presentation will ultimately illustrate the concerning conditions teachers in many schools are working in, and significantly, how the effects of toxic leadership can be perpetual, meaning moving schools is not always rehabilitating for teachers.
Although I will be drawing on my experiences of working in schools in England, the applicability of my study is unlikely confined to any single jurisdiction because the issues I discuss are very much global trends. Thus, it is therefore envisaged that my research will not only add to understandings of teachers’ working conditions but that it will resonate with and be of interest to many people with experience of working in schools and indeed other education institutions too.