A systematic review of studies on leadership models in educational research from 1980 to 2014

The purpose of this study is to reveal the extent to which different leadership models in education are studied, including the change in the trends of research on each model over time, the most prominent scholars working on each model, and the countries in which the articles are based. The analysis of the related literature was conducted by first employing a bibliometric analysis of the research and review papers indexed in the Web of Science database between 1980 and 2014. Then, a more in-depth analysis of selected papers was done using the content analysis method. The results showed that there has been increasing interest in leadership models in educational research over time. Distributed leadership, instructional leadership, teacher leadership, and transformational leadership are the most studied leadership models in educational research. It was also found that related research increasingly focuses on the effects of leaders on organizational behaviors/conditions and on student achievement. Accordingly, usage of quantitative methodology has significantly increased during the last decade. Possible reasons for these changes, implications, and recommendations for future research are also discussed.