Educational Leadership Scenario - Assignment Example

The evolving technological change, a more complicated global competition, the deregulation of markets, and the changing demographics of the workforcehave all posed a challenge to schools in attaining its goals. These developments call for a clear brand of school leadership. Leadership refers to the process of guiding and motivating an organization, and all those who are part of it, towards the fulfillment of the organization's mission. Moreover, leadership refers to risk-taking, setting new directions, creating visions, making use imaginations, changing the way people think about what is desirable, creating excitement about working with children and families, establishing relationships and structures and modifying cultures. (2001). Management pertains to the effort of utilizing resources towards the fulfillment of the organizational mission in an efficient, effective, and ethical manner. In contrast, school leadership is focused on the mission and the vision of the organization rather than its goal. The emphasis of management is on the management and accountability of school resources. In a sense, Effective leaders identify and understand their preferred and natural leadership style. These leaders have command of a variety of leadership styles and aptly match the correct style to the needs of a particular situation. In addition, effective leaders know that a high level of input and participation is sometimes necessary for decision-making and understand the skills, talents and styles of those who work for them. There are four main leadership models: Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence; Covey's-The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science and Deming's, Out of the Crisis. Peters and Waterman stated that leaders must focus on people and on the tasks of an organization. Peters and Waterman also feature the attributes of effective leaders: bias for action, staying close to the customer or the clientele, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people and hands-on and value driven. (Peters and Waterman, 1982). Covey (1989) posits that the success of an organization depends on the development of and commitment to a shared vision of the organization at its best. He stated seven principles of effective living: responsibility, integrity, respect, mutual understanding, patience and purpose. Proactivity, the first habit, refers to the ability to take charge of situations. The second habit is to begin with the end in mind. This means that one fulfills the goal. The third is putting "first things first". The fourth is that leaders think, "win-win." The fifth is that leaders seek first to understand. The sixth is that leaders create new alternatives to old and to static ways of knowing. The seventh is that leaders seek self-improvement consistently. (Covey, 1989) Wheatley (1989) believed that leaders should focus on order rather than control in organizations. He stated that leaders should recognize the ebb and flow or to the order and chaos in an organization. According to him, chaos in an organization is useful in that it stimulates growth and evolution. Leaders then should allow disequilibrium and discomfort in an organization to stimulate growth and evolution rather than exerting control to bring the organization back into equilibrium. Wheatley posits that order and chaos are both natural states of an organization, each with its own purpose. It is natural for organizations to have periods of chaos and periods of order. Deming (1984) had emphasized collaboration and teamwork among workers and managers. Each worker is focused on their appropriate role in the organization with productivity in mind. All the members of the organization have quality improvement as a goal. The Total Quality Management organization (TQM) improves quality, serves and satisfies the customer, encourages innovation, communicates information freely, addresses problems in the system, not the employees, takes pride in quality work, promotes teamwork and uses a model of continuous improvement. Burn's Transformation Leadership (1978) has as its main foundation a developmental mentality. Leadership creates incentives, mobilizes resources, support employees and respond to challenges. Burns argued that transformational leaders strive to develop an environment of collaboration and teamwork, shared authority and responsibility, professional growth, reflection, innovation and progress and growth. Greenleaf's Servant Leadership places the leader as a servant. In fact, the leader is a servant first above anything else. Servant leaders, according to Greenleaf, must be highly skilled in listening and persuasion. These leaders must know when to act and when not to act and reading people and circumstances well. These leaders continue to grow as individuals and place a high value on integrity. Suppose I have been hired as the President of a university suffering from severe financial and labor problems. In this given scenario, the most effective leadership model is Burn's Transformational Leadership. Burn's Leadership style focuses on the integrity which begins with a high calling to moral purpose and a specific vision. The first action to undertake in this situation is that the school leaders must inspire commitment by communicating moral purpose and vision, building trust among their followers and enabling followers to lead others by their own example of integrity and credibility. This first move is both inspiring and motivating because it focuses on the value of the company's product or service to the final customer, not just on the financial rewards to shareholders. The second action in this situation is that the leaders must provide direction without being prescriptive. This is deeply challenging because it captures the aura of winning. The leader understands that the present capabilities and resources will not suffice. This further means that the school must be more inventive and to make the most limited resources. The third action in this situation is to uphold the quality of teaching and research. The professional development of teachers is regarded as a critical ingredient of educational reform. Since schools need to compete for students, the quality of teaching and research must be emphasized. The compensations and benefits of teachers can be upgraded. The system of promotions and faculty ranking can be upgraded to emphasize incentives and not penalty for school reform. Moreover, central to the technical management tasks in any school is the management of the curriculum. The development of the school curriculum and its need for a continuing assessment have been to be subject to significant changes that require skillful management. The fourth action for success is the provision of specific support from external consultants. External consultants can provide critical inputs in the area of human resources development, curriculum development, purchasing decisions and tuition fee setting. It is critical that the school board adopt a strategic role. The day-to-day management of the school can be handled by the senior staff. The fifth action is to provide specific structures for providing pastoral care. This action will enable schools to respond to the various non-academic needs of the students. Since the students are the end clients of the school, the provision of added care will increase customer satisfaction. The sixth action is to provide a system of satisfactory indicators of staff and school performance. This can lead to the establishment of staff appraisals and performance reviews. In a crisis scenario of a given school, the Burn's Transformation Leadership is the best leadership style because it emphasizes integrity and the willingness to lead and develop the abilities of the people. It also provides the vision to be able to transcend the necessary attributes of leadership: skill and intensity, decisiveness and flexibility, adaptability and academic rigor, creativity and technical skill, courage and humility. Burn's hierarchy of leadership is first moral, secondly visionary and thirdly strategic. This means that the many different aspects of the leadership style remain flexible enough to address the complexity of a school organization. This style also defines the purpose in an effective and efficient ways. Burn's Transformational Leadership is the most appropriate style because it is very comprehensive. This leadership style addresses the four functional areas of a university: technical, external relations, conceptual and human relations. The technical aspect pertains to the educational processes of teaching and learning. The external relations aspect pertains to the ability of managers to control the flow of information into and out of the school. The conceptual aspect pertains to the administration and policing of the school. The fourth aspect is human relations which covers the deployment of staff and the management of human resources. It also refers to the level of participation in decision-making and policy-making within a school organization. References: Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row. Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster. Deming, W.E. (1984) Out of the crisis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press. EBOOK COLLECTION: Cunningham, W. G., & Cordeiro, P. A. (2006). Educational leadership: A problem-based approach (3rd ed.). New York: Allyn & Bacon. Marion, R. (2005). Leadership in education: Organizational theory for the practitioner. Long Grove, Il: Merrill/Prentice-Hall. McGowan, Paul and John Miller. (2001). Management vs. Leadership. School Administrator. Volume: 58. Issue: 10. Page Number: 32. Peters, Thomas J. and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. EBOOK COLLECTION: Short, P. M., & Greer, J. T. (2002). Leadership in empowered schools: Themes from innovative efforts (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall. Wheatley, M. J. (1999). Leadership and the new science. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Read More