Leadership Style Being Employed in the Case

Leadership style being employed in the case study covering the City Academy Bristol is what some experts might call participative and/or collaborative leadership. A collaborative leadership style allows for all participants to have a voice, and in this case study, the students are asked to assume the role of leader and participant while engaging in activities that call for collaboration, and participation. As one recent study determined "collaborative leadership practices that involve employees in workplace decision-making have been shown to increase commitment" (Steinheider, Wuestewald, 2008, p. 145), and in this study increasing the commitment level of all the stakeholders (including; students, teachers, administrators and parents) is one of the primary goals of the study.

One of the benefits derived from a collaborative leadership style is that it fosters creativity. Students (and other participants) are often called upon to work together and become highly engaged in projects and the decision-making process. Another benefit to collaborative leadership is that it can be used quite effectively in the educational arena. Students (who are for the most part naturally curious anyway) feel a sense of control that they might not otherwise feel in a classroom environment. The students may also feel a higher sense of motivation because their input is being valued. Additionally, student's skills may actually develop at a quicker pace, because of the collaboration. The collaborative leadership approach can be quite successful when employed in educational endeavors, especially when learning is the goal as compared to productivity.

A recent study found that there is a strong support for the use of collaborative leadership in schools. The study found that there was support for "the prevailing view that collaborative school leadership can positively impact student learning in reading and math through building the school's capacity for academic improvement" (Hallingera, Heck, 2010, p. 96). An even further extended finding by the same study showed that there was "empirical support for a more refined conception that casts leadership for student learning as a process of mutual influence in which school capacity both shapes and is shaped by the school's collective leadership" (p. 96). In other words, the use of collaborative leadership can have an even more positive impact of the participants than what was initially reasoned.