The Systematic Literature Review for Innovative Leadership in Educational Setting

This systematic review explores the characteristics and theoretical foundations of innovative leadership in educational settings, aiming to identify how specific leadership behaviours and theories promote creativity, adaptability, and institutional innovation. The review process, conducted in March 2024, was structured in four (4) stages. Initially, a comprehensive keyword search was executed across selected databases, yielding 672 articles, supplemented by ten (10) additional articles identified through reference snowballing. After removing 65 duplicates, 617 records were screened based on their title and abstracts. Of these, 558 articles were excluded due to being review articles, meta-analyses, book chapters, conference proceedings, non-English publications, or unrelated to educational settings, leaving 59 articles for a deeper qualitative analysis. Further filtering excluded articles that did not align with the research questions, resulting in a final sample of 39 studies. The analysis highlights transformational, visionary, instructional, and team-oriented leadership as central to fostering innovation, with key characteristics such as clear vision, adaptability, risk-taking, and collaboration emerging as essential for practical, innovative leadership. This review underscores the importance of a multifaceted leadership approach that integrates diverse theoretical perspectives with practical attributes to drive educational transformation, with significant implications for the practice of educational leadership.