Differences and Similarities between Coaching, Instructional and Educational Leadership Styles

Abstract Introduction: Leadership is part of the educational process, nevertheless, it has not been fully surveyed. Successful teaching and good results usually depend on an educator, as well as on the way s/he organizes the educational process. There are a lot of various educators who organize the educational process in a different way. As a result of that, three prevailing leadership styles appear - coaching, instructional and educational. In the scientific literature, it is possible to find a huge amount of information about these three styles, however, little research has been carried on the comparison of differences and similarities between them. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to derive and compare parameters (criteria) in leadership, distinguishing and summarizing their differences and similarities in tables. Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to compare the particular leadership styles according to formulated original parameters (criteria). Methods: In the paper, the method of a comparative literature review is applied. Conclusion: Comparing leadership styles, coaching leadership is focused on helping the learner and the improvement of the educational process; instructional leadership aims for effective and academic teaching when the educator is the leader; while educational leadership is focused on distributing education when the teacher, student and school environment are involved in the educational process.