Re-constructing Catholic school leadership: integrating mission, identity and practice

The genesis for this conceptual article is the serious universal concern for Catholic school leadership into the future. Catholic school systems are struggling to attract suitably qualified and experienced applicants for vacant principal positions. Arguably, the simultaneously essential responsibilities of being both the Catholic leader and the educational leader are becoming a deterrent. For a growing number of potential future Catholic school principals it seems that high quality performance in each of these two important responsibilities is mutually incompatible and, therefore, unachievable. Thus the departure point for this article is its argument that high quality Catholic and educational leadership is one and the same thing. When high quality leadership is understood as essentially a transrelational phenomenon, the educational leadership practice of the Catholic school principal will simultaneously fulfil their Catholic and educational leadership responsibilities. Hence, this article not only describes what constitutes transrelational leadership but also illustrates how such practices provide the means by which the principal is readily able to personally promote and model the Catholic mission and identity of the school.