Beyond instrumentalist leadership in schools: Educative leadership and anarcho-syndicates

Taking our cue from Gunter and Courtney’s critique of dominant discourses in the field of educational leadership, and their engagement with the concept of educative leadership as inclusive and activist, in this article we aim to deepen and expand the discussion of educative leadership. Our interest in educative leadership begins with the assumption that schools are complex spaces of human interactivity in which contestation over beliefs, values, and morals is inevitable. In drawing on insights first developed in the 1980s as part of the Educative Leadership Project in Australia, we attempt to articulate a concept and set of practices that could function as an alternative to the largely performative and managerial nature of contemporary school leadership. We seek to supplement Gunter and Courtney, drawing on theories pertaining to the structure of anarcho-syndicates in an attempt to make the argument that inclusive and non-hierarchical leadership is not the same as structureless organisation. Finally, in arguing for the centrality of education to the work of schools, we advocate for further engagement with the concept of educative leadership within the field of school leadership and management.