A Scandinavian Perspective on Educational Leadership

The objective of this article is to examine the rhetoric of educational leadership within a Scandinavian context, as it occurs within the framework of New Public Management. The study asks questions about new demands on leadership expressed in policy documents. Local culture and distinctive aspects of national life tend to modify external influences such as those inherent in the philosophy and practice of New Public Management. Scandinavian schools reflect key elements of Scan-dinavian life such as a commitment to collaboration, democracy, and indi-vidual enlightenment. These are themes in the curriculum of many of these countries and key values of the teachers who lead the learning processes. The range of tensions and dilemmas that teachers and their leaders are now facing are a direct result of the clash between generic public policy and the distinctive approach to support life and democratic culture in the Scandinavian countries. School leaders, it seems, are clearly in the middle of this clash and must medi-ate between these two trends. To remind us of the ultimate objectives of school-ing, we outline a Scandinavian vision of democratic reflective leadership. The deliberations in this article are based on a study that explored the conditions affecting the work of school leaders across the Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland,