Abstract

Over the past two decades faith-based schools have expanded in number, grown in diversity, and become an important part of education systems worldwide. As a result, a rich research agenda in the field has emerged. One aspect of this agenda relates to school leadership. What is particularly neglected is research on the impact of leadership theory on school leaders in faith-based schools. While large scale surveys are to be welcomed in this regard, these should be complemented by a large number of case studies. This paper, which arose from a study on a Catholic school in Western Australia, illustrates one direction which such case study work could take. It portrays how leadership theory has found its way into the cognitive frameworks used by leaders in the school to guide their work and the nature of the particular leadership theory they have assimilated within these frameworks. In particular, it indicates how one model of school leadership, namely, that of ‘servant leadership’, has been embraced as an overarching guide within the cognitive frameworks used by the school’s leaders to guide their work and that it is an approach that is seen as being appropriate for a Catholic school.