Turnaround Leadership in Southeast Asian Countries - Leading School Transformation

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

List of contents

Leading change exploring the school turnaround leadership in southeast asia.- Understanding principal turnaround leadership behavioral competencies in malaysian schools.- Developing and validating a principal leadership behavioural competency scale in turnaround schools.- Leadership competency framework for developing school leaders perceptions of turnaround school principals in brunei Darussalam.- Effective turnaround leadership practices in cambodia perspectives from school principals.- Effective leadership for turnaround schools an indonesian perspective.- Essential competencies for principal turnaround leadership in low performing schools insights from the vietnamese context.- Understanding the roles of the principal in promoting teacher well being a case study of a myanmar secondary turnaround school.- Successful turnaround leaders strategies to facilitate complementary roles of school stakeholders in turnaround school transformation in the Philippines.- Schools with weaker students a closer look at leadership.- Empowering teacher leadership in the lao pdr principal roles in school turnaround initiatives.- Empowering teacher leadership through professional learning communities insights from turnaround schools in southern Thailand.- Revitalising education in dili timor leste rhe roles of system leadership in transforming low performing schools.- Turnaround leadership in southeast asia practices impacts and future.

About the author

Peng Liu is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, Canada. His research interests include Indigenous leadership cross cultures, effective leadership, higher education leadership, educational change, educational policy, principal and teacher professional development, and international and comparative education. He serves as an editor for
International Journal of Educational Policy and Leadership
and an associate editor for
International Journal of Comparative Education and Development
,
Frontiers in Psychology
and
Frontiers in Education
. His most recent books include “Transforming Turnaround Schools in China: Approaches, Challenges and Achievements” published by Springer in 2021, “Educational Leadership and Asian Culture: Culturally sensitive leadership practices” published by Routledge in 2024, and “Understanding Teacher Leadership in Educational Change: An International Perspective” published by Routledge in 2025.


Lei Mee Thien serves as an Associate Professor at the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, where she also holds the position of Director at the National Higher Education Research Institute. Her research primarily focuses on educational management and leadership in both K-12 and higher education contexts. She has published articles in refereed journals, including
Educational Management, Administration & Leadership
. Her recent book is “Understanding Teacher Leadership in Educational Change: An International Perspective” published by Routledge in 2025. She is involved in research projects with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT) Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.

Summary

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.

Product details

• Assisted by: Peng Liu (Editor), Mee Thien (Editor), Lei Mee Thien (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.10.2025
• EAN: 9789819678938
• ISBN: 978-981-9678-93-8
• No. of pages: 308
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 21 mm x 235 mm
• Weight: 590 g
• Illustrations: XI, 308 p. 7 illus., 1 illus. in color.
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Education system; Pädagogische Psychologie, Lehrerausbildung, Educational psychology, Organization and Leadership, Southeast Asia, Teaching and Teacher Education, leadership competency, teacher empowerment, Turnaround Leadership, Principal Turnaround Leadership, Turnaround School, Competency Framework, Turnaround Leader, Low Performing Schools, Leadership Standards