Principals’ perceptions about collective competences in shared leadership contexts

This article aims to understand how principals perceive collective competences in their schools’ shared leadership contexts. Collective competences are crucial in shared leadership but have not been widely explored within educational leadership studies. This study investigates collective competences through two intersected models: attribute and relational models. The data comprise interviews conducted with 12 Finnish principals in comprehensive and secondary schools who practiced shared modes of leadership. Due to the Finnish school culture emphasising collaboration, the principals were expected to be able to broadly consider the collective side of competences in their schools. The data were analysed using a hybrid thematic analysis. Consequently, nine collective competence themes were found: shared meaning, sharing accounts, collective mindset, knowledge sharing and creation, developing contexts, broad participation, views of relationships, group collaboration and shared goal-oriented beliefs. These themes provide a fresh understanding of how to develop educational leadership considered in plural terms.