Turnaround Leadership in Southeast Asian Countries

This book explores turnaround leadership in Southeast Asian countries across four themes: principal competencies and leadership frameworks, country-specific practices, teacher leadership and empowerment, and system leadership for school transformation. The chapters collectively contribute to a unified understanding of how theoretical models intersect with real-world challenges and strategies to improve low-performing schools. Emphasising a flexible, context-driven approach over a one-size-fits-all model, the book underscores the importance of adapting leadership strategies to diverse educational environments. While rooted in Southeast Asia, its insights are globally relevant, offering guidance for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners aiming to advance educational equity and sustainable school improvement through contextually grounded leadership practices. This book also encourages meaningful cross-country learning and policy development.

Professor Kenneth Leithwood, University of Toronto, Canada

Featuring qualitative evidence from schools in 11 Southeast Asian countries, this book provides a carefully grounded and much needed non-western perspective on the meaning of successful school leadership and the culturally sensitive task of improving the performance of underperforming schools. It is an excellent resource for both practicing school leaders and researchers.

Professor Coby Meyers, University of Virginia, United States

The rapid improvement of underserved schools—and the students they serve—remains a critical topic worldwide. Liu and Thien’s focus on Southeast Asia is a timely and comprehensive account of various challenges to leading school turnaround in an array of contexts. The attention paid to system, school, and teacher leaders in these challenging circumstances offer important insights into how such efforts can be successful in Southeast Asia and elsewhere while illuminating the various complexities to overcome.

Professor Jingping Sun, University of Alabama, United States

What distinguishes successful school leaders from others is the breadth and accumulation of practices and strategies they enact and employ, as well as the frequency and intensity with which they apply them effectively with precise timing to achieve success, driven by resilience, passion, contextual intelligence, political acuity, and above all, a strong moral purpose. As Walker and Dimmock commented, our understanding of educational leadership remains incomplete if the bulk of theory and practice in the field are drawn from Anglo-Saxon countries. This explains the unique contribution of this book, which broadens our understanding of educational leadership to turn around schools in Southeast Asian countries.