Figen Yaman Lesinger

By Hülya Şenol and Figen Yaman Lesinger

School culture is a phenomenon that is created by students, teachers, administrators, parents, and other school staff members. It is formulated and operated by the school administrators. School culture is acquired in form of habits, beliefs, perceptions, behaviors, and norms, and influences every aspect of how a school functions, including the methods of communication and the style of leadership of the school. Organizational trust in schools may not be formulated without school culture and the stakeholders of education are the key actors, who play crucial roles at the provision of organizational trust. Quality of the communication among administrators and other stakeholders plays an important role in constructing trust in a school, increasing motivation, and creating opportunities to express the needs and expectations to each other. Different perceptions among teachers and school administrators on educational leadership may cause problems regarding the organization of the school. This may in turn become a source of organizational conflict. This chapter involves the definition of instructional leadership, general features of an instructional leader, reconceptualization of instructional leadership as distributed leadership; concept of school culture and its features; and concept of institutional trust and role of instructional leadership in constructing school culture and trust in schools.

Part of the book: Leadership