Micro-political leadership strategies used by curriculum leaders in one Queensland school in implementing the national curriculum

Despite several countries having introduced a national curriculum, the literature on how school leaders implement such curriculum is surprisingly scant. This article reports on one aspect of a larger study that investigated how members of a school curriculum leadership team implemented Australia’s first national curriculum. The aspect reported in this article is concerned with leadership strategies used by these members in the implementation of this curriculum. The findings draw on semi-structured in-depth interviews of 29 participants, comprising 17 members of this team and 11 teachers in the case school, and one school sector curriculum officer. Blase and Anderson’s (1995) micro-political leadership matrix was used to analyse the research findings, which shed light on the micro-political leadership practices regarding how school leaders implement large-scale mandated curriculum change. This analysis highlighted the need for those with curriculum leadership to understand micro-politics in leading such change.