How school leaders decide when school autonomy is low: interactive leadership to navigate system governance

This theory-building article explores how governance structures shape school leadership practices in contexts with limited autonomy. In low-autonomy environments, principals often occupy dual roles, functioning as administrative enforcers of centrally determined regulations and limitedly as instructional leaders, striving to influence teaching and learning processes. Various governance features, such as low decisional power at the school level, high teachers’ autonomy and reduced functioning budgets, impose tight restrictions on principals’ actions. The method draws mainly on a comparison of structures to highlight convergent governance modes. Qualitative data from the Global Education Monitoring Report (2024) collected in France, Italy, Ivory Coast and Romania solely exemplifies salient aspects. Despite challenges that are typical when school autonomy is low, school leaders adopt interactive tactics, including informal negotiations with teachers and school boards, to reconcile top-down mandates with local school needs. The analysis reveals that fostering collaboration and coherence among staff is often contingent on persuasion and consensus-building. Indeed, formal authority and low principalship powers are insufficient in hierarchical and loosely coupled systems. Ultimately, this study highlights that understanding leadership in low-autonomy school systems requires acknowledging the structural conditions that enable or constrain principals’ effective powers to influence teaching, organisational culture, and decision-making.