Are Principals of Russian Schools Ready for Transformational Leadership

Abstract

Based on results of TALIS‑2013, of which Russia was a participant for the first time, we analyze demographic characteristics, length of service and working load of school principals, their competencies and opportunities for professional development, as well as working conditions, duties and working priorities. We also discuss how principals participate in teacher performance assessment and delegate their school management responsibilities, which resources they need, and how they assess the ethos of their schools. Research was conducted in 14 regions of Russia and revealed different levels of leadership potential in educational institutions. The recent changes to the education system (new Federal Law “On Education”, new Federal State Educational Standards) require principals to work in a transformational leadership style, but only few of the respondents succeed. Principals prefer micromanagement” and interacting with individual teachers, not staff groups. Authoritarianism and unwillingness to delegate power are the major handicaps to transformational leadership of schools principals. There has been no established  ystem for school principal training in Russia so far. Only some of the regions reported to have trained over 20 percent of candidates prior to employment; meanwhile, there were regions with no training available to principals before the start of their career. It is imperative that the school principal training system involve teaching teambuilding, power delegation and distributed leadership skills.