Developing Agile Leaders of Learning: School leadership policy for dynamic times

School leadership policies are key to improving the quality of teaching and learning within a school, and they also impact student achievement and wellbeing outcomes. Despite a flurry of activity in the area of leadership development, there are few examples of coherent systemic approaches to leadership policy. We present existing empirical evidence on the impact of leadership on student outcomes, the need to better develop leadership for learning and the emerging global activity in leadership development to underline our claim that leadership policy is an area worthy of additional focus and investment. We then draw on existing research and cases to propose how a jurisdiction might develop a systemic strategy for developing leadership capability, focusing on the key questions of who to develop, what capabilities to develop, and how to design effective development.