Future Leaders: the Way Forward - Assignment Example

Introduction The article, ‘Future leaders: the way forward?’ by Earley et al., discusses the government’s initiatives for creating a talent pool of future educational leaders who would be able to fill the gap for head teachers and other senior staff of schools. Indeed, in the contemporary environment of fast changing demographic structure of society across the globe, leadership has become a vital ingredient of organizations. It has especially become a critical element within the educational system as it significantly influences various stakeholders like educational administration, students, parents, teachers and people at large. In the recent times, the vacancies for headship in school in UK are swelling up at alarming rate with increasing number of head-teachers who are opting for early retirement. Effective succession planning for selection and retention of head-teachers through leadership development programmes has become priority for UK government. The paper would critically analyze the article for the various issues and paradigms within the educational system that promote the need for government programmes. The initiatives are designed to create future educational leaders who would be able to fill the vacancies of senior school staff. Critique The article is highly relevant and gives deep insight into the developing crisis situation in UK schools which are faced with the huge problems of filling the vacancies of Headship with right candidates. Howson report (2007) shows concern on the government’s inability to fill the vacancies of headship in 35% of primary, 19% of secondary and 33% of special school. The authors are hopeful that FL program would be able to create committed leaders who would be able to do justice to the post of headship in the future. Interestingly the two year programme requires non working people who have teaching experience but gives no guarantee of their employment after the programme! It calls for serious reforms in the eligibility criteria, selection process and after training feedback are required. This would help the genuinely capable person to apply and prove their mettle in a system that constantly needs dynamic initiatives to meet the changing requirements of fast transforming society. At the same time eligibility qualification of QTS and teaching experience for FL programmes has been found to be the most contentious criteria. It greatly limits the scope of the programs and deters talents from non academia. They can bring in new ideas and approach to various paradigms of educational system and teaching. The article is divided into two distinct parts: one that elaborates an evaluated the ‘Future Leader’; and second part that tries to look into the crisis that has emerged with low retention and increasing trend of early retirement of the heads of the schools. While the two issues are important paradigms of education system, the authors’ have been ambiguous in clarifying whether the existing heads actually lack leadership traits. The issues have been examined in relative detail so that developing crisis of low retention of senior staff of schools could be identified. But the article is unable to identify linkages between the two issues for efficient delivery of goals of the FL programmes. There is ambiguity as to how the FL would be able to resolve the issue of early retirement of heads. But it has been successful in showing the viability of FL in schools primarily because of the fast transforming societal format which has increasingly become multicultural. The authors have used questionnaires, interview schedules and case studies to analyze the inputs from participants of the programme. At various stages of the programmes, the inputs from the participants and various stakeholders like host school management, senior staff, mentors of the participants etc. have been judiciously evaluated against the wider goals and objectives of the programme. The authors assert that while the initial programme was highly successful in developing educational leaders, the successive programme lacked robust measures in its selection criteria that had resulted in development of not so effective leaders. The programme would be able to create good educational leaders who can provide an intangible stability among the students coming from cross cultural value systems and facilitate their integration with the mainstream population. Scholars argue that present heads of schools lack dynamic leadership qualities to meet the needs of contemporary pluralistic societies (Petzko et al., 2002; Walker et al., 2003). Hence, the FL programmes would help fill the vital gap and equip the headship vacancies with more effective educational leaders. The authors have discussed the various components of the programme, including selection criteria, training and experience of the participants in the one year mandatory placement with host schools. But they have not discussed the vital ingredients of leadership traits and leadership styles that are most suitable to the future leaders in schools. Palus and Horth (2003) assert that leadership training needs to focus not only on the development of general skills of leadership traits but also on how they can effectively deliver measurable goals and raise the standard of education. Though article is highly appreciative of the wider goals and objectives of the problems, it nevertheless raises genuine concern on the practical training of the participants. It has exposed the weakness of the programme by asserting that as heads and senior staffs were not inclined to delegate work, the participants could not actually gain fruitful experience on relevant issues and problems that are faced by senior staff on day today business. The article has also discussed the crisis in filling up large number of vacancies for headship in near future. It is felt that the increasing workload on the Heads is one of the major reasons for high stress that is leading to their early retirement. The FL programme is intended to produce young dynamic leaders who would be able to take up the challenges of headship. Earley et al. believe that there is need for reform in the present education system and heads must be provided with qualified assistants who can be delegated work. It would not only relieve some of the stress from the headship but would also be able to make it more attractive for new incumbents. Another important fact is that article has discussed and evaluated UK government’s ‘Future Leader’ against the efficacy of the programme in creating group of good and effective educational leaders. It has touched major issues and factors that are addressed within the programme so that the future educational leaders are better equipped to deal with the changing dynamics of the society at large. As a stand alone article, it has incorporated critical aspects of educational paradigms like mentoring of FL by successful heads and coaches. But they also feel that more intensive study needs to be taken up for evaluating the reasons for low retention of senior staff and why people are unwilling to fill in the vacancies of headship. The article is explicit in its theory that younger staff need to be motivated for the senior position. People from outside academia could also provide more innovative inputs as head or deputy head of the school. While discussing the future of headship, the authors have been successful in identifying some major factors behind issue of early retirement and low retention in school of senior administrative staff. The authors have identified three Ws: well being, welfare and workload as major factors which have adverse impact on health which results in early retirement and low retention of heads. It substantiates the work of other experts who believe that changing workplace conditions, increased responsibilities and policy decisions made by government which face practical implementation are some of the major reasons for the dissatisfaction of the heads (Gronn and Rawlings-Sinai, 2003; Zeitour & Newton, 2002). These are debilitating factors that influence the decision of heads. The article has also called for restructuring the model of hierarchy of senior staff. They believe that the concept of distributed leadership could be effectively applied across the senior administrative and academic staff. It would reduce workload and at the same time, accountability would also be spread across wider segment of senior staff. It would also help empower other senior members to make decisions based on informed choices and collective decision making. This is a brilliant suggestion that would encourage the heads to complete their tenure and at the same time, help nurture the leadership traits of other people who have potential to up headship successfully. Conclusion One can therefore conclusively state that the article has been successful in disseminating important information about the leadership programmes of the government. While some important details of FL programmes have been left out, the article has nevertheless given crucial input to the tentative causes for the burgeoning problems in the education system. The reasons and suggestions cited by the authors for early retirement and low retention of school Heads and senior school staff are highly credible. Indeed, the article is highly appreciable because future educational leaders would be to address this vital issue within the education system. (words: 1483) Reference Earley, Peter., Weindling, Dick., Bubb, Sara., and Glenn, Meli. (2009). Future leaders: the way forward?. School Leadership & Management, 29(3); 295-306. Gronn, P and Rawlings-Sanaei, F. (2003). Principal recruitment in a climate of leadership disengagement. Australian Journal of Education 47 (2): 172-184. Howson, J. (2007). The state of the labour market for senior staff in schools in England and Wales. Oxford: Education Data Surveys. Palus, C.J. & Horth, D.M. (2004). Exploration for Development. In C.D. McCauley & E. Van Velsor (eds.), The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 438-464. Petzko, V.N., Clark, D.C., Valentine, J.W.,& Hackmann, D.G. (2002). Leaders and leadership in middle level schools. NASSP Bulletin (Reston), 86 (631), 3. Walker, A., Stott, K., Cheng Yin, C. (2003). Principal supply and quality demands: a tale of two Asia-Pacific city states. Australian Journal of Education, 47(2), 197-208. Zeitoun, P., and Newton, R.M. (2002). Strategies for reinventing the principalship. Evaluative Report. Read More