Leadership and Managment - Essay Example

?Table of Contents Table of Contents Professional and Personal Skills and Attributes 8 Conclusion 10 References 10 Leadership and Management: Centro Sure Start Children's Centre Introduction Sure Start Children's Centres are places where families with children aged below five are provided with information and services in various local communities across the United Kingdom. These places are also great for meeting and interacting with new people from different cultures and or backgrounds. This is a government-fund program that dedicated its efforts towards supporting children and families. The program’s initiative began in 1998 in England with a major aim of providing disadvantaged families with young children with services that enable upright development of their children (Parton, 2006). Many centres are faced with management challenges that can be categorized as higher than those faced by childcare centres and private nurseries since they work under targets set by the local government. Historically, these centres are organized around prior childcare initiatives and local early education (Lewis, Cuthbert and Sarre, 2011). Centro Sure Start Children's Centre was founded in 2008 and has been operational since then, accounting for twelve employees who oversee the well being of over seventy five children and or families in its fairly populated neighbourhood. This establishment, together with collaboration with other Sure Start Children's Centres helps bring together health, early learning as well as family support. In addition, the presence of this centre has provided parents with more time and opportunities in pursuing their personal aspirations with respect to education, employment and training. Furthermore, the centre helps ensure each child gets the most suitable start in their lives as well as help their parents to confidently choose how to balance their career and family commitments. Organizational Structure The aim of Centro Sure Start Children's Centre is to become a universal facility with a low threshold and community based in order to integrate services for different children and families (Anning and Ball, 2008). One of these initiatives underpins the purpose of Centro and its intention is to “break the intergenerational transmission of poverty, school failure and social exclusion by enhancing the life chances for children less than four years of age growing up in disadvantaged neighbourhoods” (House of Commons, 2010:15). In order to achieve this, the institution strives to reach out to the most disadvantaged and or vulnerable families and children, engaging parents of these children and general community in the whole process as well as integrating and making services easily accessible to the community. Thus, the centre’s major goal is to put the vulnerable child and family at the heart of the program, providing them with essential day care and early education services necessary for their direct and easy entry into primary school. The non stop focus on the involvement of the parents and the community at large by the institution can be attributed to the roots in early childhood education and day care. Management Structure/Skills Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre operates under what can be described as an autocratic form of leadership where employees are to follow strict procedures, guidelines and policies. This form of leadership can largely be attributed to the government ownership or rather fund that the centre gets. The major issue with this leadership style is that decisions are made from the top with little or no consultation from the bottom of the leadership hierarchy. However, this little or no consultation makes such decision making processes rapid. In addition, it can result in some employees feeling devalued due to their inability to contribute their ideas. However, effective leaders can employ some of this style’s features in a sensible way, for instance in cases where the manager is the most qualified. Perhaps, one can term the leadership style used as heroic where the top leader holds the expert knowledge. Adopting a more romantic leadership style is suitable for this institution since this allows for co-creation as well as participation of other players including the community and other agencies. Romantic leadership style can be described as “the assumption that it is necessary to involve people, and that the direction and content of change will emerge from the involvement process” (Beech and Crane, 1999: 79). Organizational Culture This is a concept that describes the experiences, attitudes, values and beliefs of an organization. According to O’Brien, Bachmann, Jones, Reading, Thoburn, Husbands, Watson (2009), organizational culture is “the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization” The values of Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre include the ideas and beliefs members should pursue with respect to the defined goals as well as ideas about the proper standards of behaviour the members should adopt in order to achieve these goals. The centre is headed by a director as a pre-requirement by the National standards for leaders in Sure Start children’s centres (Department for Education and Skills, 2007). The organization strives to establish an environment where employees attend regular training in early years care development. Interagency collaboration has been a recent trend in many Sure Care centres across the UK. Collaboration is vast in the centre where individual employees work together in order to arrive at specific goals that would have not been realized as a single unit. An example is where the institution aligns and or integrates the universal services provided into a single family thus saving time. Despite this collaboration exercises, the leadership style is a hindrance in that the person at the top is still in command of the teams; which directly report to him. The difficulties associated with this model are diversity and unity. Diversity involves the staff’s autonomy whereas unity refers to interdependence or shared forces between teams. The teams are headed by a team leader whose role is to execute the tasks for the overall director of the facility with little or no room for participating in decision making. This provides limited room for sharing of ideas and information. In addition, unity among team members and different teams is an issue due to the lack of universality of ideas and or information; a feat which can only be achieved via effective team work and or collaboration. This has been the major failure of the autocratic style used by the organization. However, implementation of a more democratic style that incorporates collaboration is an effective way of ensuring that staffs are independent in their actions and or execution of tasks as well as instigating a team approach to problem solving as well as the general management of the facility. Culture of Trust A successful organization needs trust to prevail among its employees; a feat that is very difficult to achieve (Das and Teng, 1998). One major impact of autocratic leadership is staff division which in the long run results to separated trust among working teams and members. Organizational trust at Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre entails the beliefs and expectations put in teams and its members that they will accomplish a given task in a desired way (Horwath and Morrison, 2007). The institution is built on these beliefs and expectations which when enhanced among professionals in the organization results in the successful achievement of the organizational goals while keeping its values. Enhancing this trust is a feat yet to be achieved by the organization as it, according to Das and Teng (1998), take time and effort as well as willingness of other players towards building the desired trust. Leadership Qualities The English government has clearly stated that in order to achieve integrated services of the highest quality in children centres, it is essential that these centres employ leaders that are strong and inspiring (House of Commons, 2010). The leader is required to be knowledgeable and with the required professional skills as stipulated by the National College of Leadership in Children’s services. This has necessitated the development of a leadership program aimed at improving leadership skills as well as building leaders capable of sharing the best practices in these centres. “Good leadership is critical to a successful school. Success comes from aiming high with the clear vision, ethos and communication that good leadership brings” (Dudau, 2009:403). Leadership is central to the success of Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre although there is a scope for improvement. Managers at the institution are often focused on their day-to-day activities as opposed to being strategic in the long run. Leadership is believed to include a vision that is based on the shared organizational values. In addition, leaders are in abetter position to motivate and direct their colleagues (Milbourne, Macrea and Maguire, 2003). Leadership at Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre has been invested in a single person (director) rather than distributing it. Early years of development are usually overseen by women employees working in a non-hierarchical environment, thus the preference for the distributive model of leadership. Employees at the Centre are of different experience, qualifications and training and as a result a multi-professional leadership context is generated that is majorly composed of females from different social and cultural backgrounds (Locke, 2003). A good educational development leader should exhibit quality management knowledge and skills, be able to articulate concerns confidently, demonstrate clear knowledge of contemporary educational research as well as be aware of the prevailing educational political environment. Leadership is not a personal attribute instead; it is realized in relationships shared between team members and their leaders in a social context where they set the standards expectations for their team members to follow. An effective leader must possess skills and characteristics related to team work, support, motivation, and definition of roles as well as setting of goals (Rodd, 2005). Leaders at Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre are capable of building relationships with their team members, the community as well as with other agencies playing a role in its activities. In addition, the delegation of duties to junior members of teams is seen as an important tool of empowering the staff and instigating a shared decision making model in the institution. Bloom (2003) reveals three key areas that leaders at Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre need to be competent in: attitudes that includes moral purpose; knowledge that includes organizational theory, group dynamics, teaching strategies as well as child development; skills that include human, technical and conceptual skills, for instance budgeting. In addition to these competencies, an effective leader must be able to demonstrate the following characteristics: be goal oriented, use planning, be confident, assertive as well as have a vision; have good working relationships with fellow employees participating in the leadership process; respond to the needs of parents while maintaining effective communication with them. Research has previously been conducted regarding the importance of leadership at different levels of education yet little has been done with respect to leadership in early childhood contexts; hence, more research needs to be conducted in this area to curb the ongoing theorizing of early childhood settings and or contexts. Managers organize, plan, control and co-ordinate while leaders direct, inspire, advocate for and build teamwork, gain acceptance while at the same time setting an example to the junior staff. In essence, a team leader should be able to: i. Identify and articulate a collective a vision ii. Ensure shared meanings, understandings and goals iii. Communicate effectively iv. Encourage reflection v. Commit to the ongoing self and team professional development vi. Monitor and assess practices and activities vii. Distribute leadership via authority delegation viii. Build a team culture and a learning society ix. Encourage and facilitate parents and general community partnerships x. Lead and manage. Professional and Personal Skills and Attributes Connelly, Zhang and Faerman (2008:18), and Thomson, Perry and Miller (2007:25) describe collaboration as “the effort of individuals and organizations to work together to accomplish goals that cannot be accomplished alone.” As a form of embracing teamwork, collaboration in children’s services has often received different names, for instance, partnerships, multi-agency working, interagency working, joint working, and network collaboration (Atkinson, Wilkin, Stott, Doherty and Kinder, 2002). In essence, interagency working “involves more than one agency, working together in a planned and formal way, rather than simply through informal networking either at strategic or operational level” (Crawford, 2003:62). Children centres in the UK have formed collaborations between well established services that incorporate professions like nurses, doctors, social workers and educators. These groups interact on regular basis and in the process exchange and share different ideas and information which helps in the skills and knowledge development. The role of collaborative leaders is the alignment of individual interagency goals with the collaborative goals and in so doing; these leaders should be in a position to identify the significance of working in teams as well as the independence of different players in the team. On a more individual level, a leader’s personal values and visions have a fundamental role to play in determining the quality of leadership. According to Sarros and Santora (2001), perceptions and or perspectives of leaders on the important goals a team should achieve are heavily influenced by the personal values of the leader. A study by Coleman (2011: 302) describing how values of leaders can involve tensions is an illustration of the personal dilemmas experienced by leaders. According to Coleman, such a tension involves the leader’s ability to demonstrate the openness and honesty necessary to develop trusting relationships with followers, while still manipulating the prevailing political agendas at a range of levels to secure their will”. Despite this, Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre’s autocratic leadership approach leaves little room for team work apart from the conditional participation of family and the general community. Most of the activities at Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre are executed from the top with junior members in most cases subject to directives. However, the continued involvement of third parties in the day to day running of the institution is a positive step towards team development. One characteristic of collaborative leaders is that they need to be sensitive of their environment and be able to adjust their leadership roles depending on the prevailing situation so as to follow rather than lead whenever necessary (Huxham and Beech, 2003). In addition to this, Hard (2004) noted four clusters of skills to help team leaders in their leadership role: i. Quality interpersonal communication skills ii. Team facilitation skills usually for conducting of effective meetings iii. Decision making skills since management is participative. iv. Staff/team development skills Conclusion Different researches exist regarding educational leadership with almost all putting emphasis or rather focusing on the beliefs, values, skills and knowledge that many view to be the ideal for a good leader or leadership, rather than focus on actual practices of leadership. According to Leithwood, Day, Sammons, Harris and Hopkins (2006), the existing literature spills out less regarding the specific requirements for successful leadership and more about effective practices of leadership. The overlaps between the different leadership forms like collaborative, shared, participative and democratic (Leithwood et al., 2006:47-48) has resulted in the use of the term distributed leadership to refer to a form of leadership practice in Sure Start Centres that is devolved, dispersed or shared. However, it should be understood that distributed leadership does not mean everyone leads; rather, it means the practice is distributed beyond the manager. Recent times have seen incomparable political attention drawn towards early childhood education and care. It is clear that there is a strong relationship between proper and or quality leadership in early year services or rather Sure Start Children’s Centres and the effectiveness of these services. As a result, it can be recommended that research be conducted regarding early years leadership in the UK as well as the development of suitable and or quality training in early years’ leadership practices. These could be embedded early childhood courses both at undergraduate and post graduate levels. References Anning, A. & Ball, M. (2008) Improving services for young children: from Sure Start to Children's Centres, London, England, SAGE. Atkinson, M., Wilkin, A., Stott, A., Doherty, P. & Kinder, K. (2002) Multi-agency working: a detailed study, New York, National Foundation for Educational Research. Beech, N. & Crane, O. (1999) ‘High performance teams and a climate of community,’ Team Performance Management, vol. 5, pp. 87–102. Bloom, P.J. (2003) Leadership in action: how effective directors get things done, Lake Forest, New Horizons. Boardman, M. (2003), ‘Changing times: Changing challenges for early childhood leaders,’ Australian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 20–25. Coleman, A. (2011) ‘Towards a blended model of leadership for school-based collaborations,’ Educational Management Administration Leadership, vol. 39, pp. 296-316. Connelly, D.R., Zhang, J. & Faerman, S.R. (2008) The paradoxical nature of collaboration. In L. Blomgren Bingham & R. O’Leary (Eds.) Big ideas in collaborative public management New York, Sharpe Inc. pp. 17-35. Crawford, M (2003), ‘Inventive management and wise leadership’, in Bennett, N, Crawford, M, and Cartwright, M (Eds.), Effective educational leadership, London, Paul Chapman, pp. 62–73. Das, T.K. & Teng, B.S. (1998) ‘Between trust and control: Developing confidence in partner cooperation in alliances,’ Academy of Management Review, vol. 23, pp. 491–512. 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(2007) ‘Conceptualizing and measuring collaboration,’ Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance Access, vol. 19, pp. 23-56. Thomson, A.M. & Perry, J.L. (2006) ‘Collaboration Process: Inside the black box,’ Public administration review, vol. 66, pp. 20-32. Warmington, P., Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Brown, S., Leadbetter, J., Martin, D. & Middleton, D. (2004) Interagency collaboration: a review of the literature, Bath, Learning in and for Interagency Working Project. Appendix SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Purpose-built facility. Established in partnership with parents. Breadth and wealth of knowledge and experience of staff members. Flexibility to new policy challenges and demands. Commitment and attendance of board meetings. Lack of proper coordination at certain levels of management. Opportunities Threats Integrating child care with family support. Formation of valuable partnerships with other centres or agencies. A clear route for progression from pre-birth to school. Allows for career development of parents. Increasing parents’ access to the facility. Communication problems that could hinder development of other children’s centres. Lack of pre-school educators continues to hinder the capacity of identifying special needs. Overview of policies of Centro Sure Start Children’s Centre Origin Day care and early education services for vulnerable families and or children. Target Groups Parents with children aged below 5. Goals of centre Improve outcomes of children and their families with increased emphasis on families that are most disadvantaged in order to cut down the increasing inequalities. Easily avail quality universal early childhood services locally at affordable prices. Respect and engage parents in the institution’s operations. Working in partnerships with other agencies. Share expertise with other early childhood contexts in order to improve quality. Services provided Community health services. Advice and information to carers, mothers and fathers. Adult education. Integrated early childcare and learning for children. Roles of Leaders i. Establishment and sustenance of a challenging and supportive environment. ii. Provision of the organization’s vision, leadership and general direction in the creation and development of collaborative and comprehensive services. iii. Leading the centre’s work in order to secure success, accountability of the success as well as continuous improvement. iv. Working with and via the team to shape and design flexible and responsive services that meet the ever changing children and family needs. v. Ensure that all members of the team and or staff fully understand the developmental needs of the children. vi. Ensure that the centre collects and utilizes all bits of available data regarding the local community in order to understand the nature and complexity of serving them. vii. Implement such gained understanding and knowledge to inform how to organize services as well as how to provide highly differentiated services. Read More