Wade Smith

Metaphors for School Leadership: Jazz and Leadership Density Wade Smith

School leadership has typically been studied from a person-centered perspective. This study took a different tact and focused on leadership as an organizational construct rather than a set of personal attributes vested in a person or persons. Musical metaphors served as the basis for understanding how traditional school leadership can be understood as well for building a theory of leadership that might prove useful to school seeking to optimize their human and social capital. Quantitative results were used to identify four contrasting schools for leadership dynamics. Case studies of these schools were performed to better understand the meaning and potential of leadership density in the everyday life of schools. Collectively, the findings of the study support the small jazz combo metaphor as a viable conceptualization that captures manfy of the dynamics believed necessary for the creation and facilitation of leadership density in schools.