What are the connections between self-review and successful Leadership?

I have just read a really interesting article by Richard F. Elmore (Elmore, 2002) who suggests that school educators pay too little attention to the connection between how they organise and manage the school (form) and to their own and student’s learning (function).

He alerts me to some interesting thoughts about how school leaders allow things to be done the way they have always been done, refering to this as the “unexamined Wallpaper”. If you’ve had wallpaper up on your walls for 10 or more years, as we all know, you cease to notice it! I like that analogy as it helped me to make the connection between successful leadership and self-review. I also became conscious of the importance that ERO places on sound School Self-Review and that self review would indeed lead to high performing school outcomes.


Therefore Self-Review should be a "deliberate act of leadership".


Elmore, R. F. (2002). Hard Questions About Practice. Educational Leadership, 59(8), 22–25.