فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Educational leadership styles play a pivotal role in enhancing learning quality, improving school effectiveness, and evaluation of teachers and students’ performance. This study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of educational leadership styles in schools of Iran, Japan, Finland, South Africa, and Australia. These countries were selected based on "different social systems, different educational outcomes" strategy. The research employed a documentary data collection method and utilized Bereday’s comparative approach for data analysis. Findings revealed that distributed, participatory, and learning-oriented leadership styles dominate in Finland and Australia, closely tied to their decentralized structures, institutional trust, and emphasis on teachers’ professional development. In contrast, authoritarian and hierarchical leadership styles prevail in Iran and Japan - largely rooted in organizational culture and centralized educational systems-, although Japan exhibits emerging tendencies toward participatory leadership due to its collectivist cultural norms. South Africa - shaped by its unique historical context-, employs a hybrid of transformational, situational, and context-aware leadership styles. The study found educational system structures, organizational culture, economic conditions, and leadership selection processes as critical determinants of leadership styles. Based on the findings, it is suggested that educational policymakers in countries with centralized structures should improve the quality of leadership by increasing the authority of schools, reviewing mechanisms for appointment of principals, and strengthening professional development programs.