Effective Leadership in Education: Techniques and Principles - Essay Example

Effective Leadership in Education: Techniques and Principles Effective Leadership in Education: Techniques and Principles Effective leadership is the ability of a leader to enable a group of people entrusted to her or him such as students by helping them manage challenging situations to achieve the desired goals. Such a leadership is characterized by teamwork, dedication, positive learning environment, trust, and strong relationships (Harris, Day, Hopkins, Hadfield, Hargreaves, & Chapman, 2013).

An effective leader in education is defined by various leadership techniques including cultivation of strong relationship with parents, developing individual students, promoting inclusive learning strategies, and setting coordinated long-term as well as short-term goals for the students. Additionally, an effective education leader should possess various principles, which include and not limited to self-awareness, accountability, caring, leading by example, excellent communication skills, and excellent decision-making skills.

Effective leaders implement inclusive strategies to ensure the satisfaction of all needs of every student in the led group, which promote students to participate actively in the learning process. Inclusive strategies help a group of students and the leader develop a comfortable environment where instructions are presented in diversified ways. Leadership is not effective if the leader does not recognize the needs of disabled students; hence, an effective leader in education identifies and satisfies the needs of all students irrespective of their nature through the implementation of inclusive strategies.

Additionally, the technique ensures that the leader develops individual students as they can determine their weaknesses and address them in a diversified approach revealing their caring nature. Parent involvement and accountability are implemented by effective leaders to lead the students in an efficient manner. It helps the leader to understand each member of the group both within and out of the school environment (Bennett, Crawford & Cartwright, 2003). The secret towards managing students is by knowing their behavior, strengths, and weakness, which is made easier by involving parents who may be well aware of individual student’s character.

Parent involvement further enables the leader to track the student’s progress both academically and socially, that ensures students entrusted to the leader are on the right track. Leaders that have been successful in education set coordinated short-term and long-term goals for the students and promote the idea of teamwork. Setting goals for the group as a leader ensures that the students have a target, which subsequently drives them to work hard for them to achieve the goals (Morrison, 2015).

On the other hand, the leader constantly engages in robust self-evaluation and the analysis of achievement towards the set goals with a clear motive of implementing strategies for improvement. This further promotes the principle of self-awareness that effective leaders possess. Consequently, effective leaders build leadership that is not based on power and control, but the ability to work as a team in achieving success (Harris et al., 2013). Effective leaders have excellent communication and decision-making skills that enable them to handle challenges and make sound decisions towards the achievement of set objectives.

They must possess the ability to communicate effectively to the group members instilling a sense of energy and focus to every student towards achieving success. Effective education leaders make decisions that illustrate their trust in both the students’ ability and their principle to lead by example (Bennett, Crawford & Cartwright, 2003). Most effective leaders implement these techniques and principles that assure them of a successful leadership towards a group entrusted to them. References Bennett, N.

, Crawford, M., and Cartwright, M. (2003). Effective educational leadership. London: Open University in association with Paul Chapman Pub. Harris, A., Day, C., Hopkins, D., Hadfield, M., Hargreaves, A., and Chapman, C. (2013). Effective leadership for school improvement. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Morrison, N. (2015). The Eight Characteristics Of Effective School Leaders. Forbes.com. Retrieved 19 September 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2013/12/30/the-eight-characteristics-of-effective-school-leaders/