What Is Educational Leadership - Essay Example

Educational leadership, in my view, is a very broad concept. The leader has to properly plan the academics and curriculum, be tough in order to maintain discipline, has to control the state and federal policy requirements of running the school, take care of the community building aspect of education, be good at finance in order to maintain budget control and make best use of the available funds, be a role model to the students and a mentor to the teachers in his/her institution and keep in mind the global aspect of education in today’s world which leads to change of student needs and demands.

Although all the above qualities are desired in a school leader, I believe it is not fair to expect one person to be good at so many aspects of work. This is the reason why “shared leadership” seems to be an effective idea to me. In shared leadership, the leader passes around the command to the team according to the demand of the job. This is according to Burns theory of Transformational Leadership, which he defined as the “ability to empower others “.In other areas as well, it is known that after a limit, benefits like salary hike do not motivate the employees any more.

The trick beyond that limit is to give them decision making power. The same is true in education as well. Another theory that seems to be very appealing to me especially in education is the Servant Leader theory. Educational institutions in our world are generally seen as institutions made to serve the community. Although education is big business nowadays, still people like to think of it as a place which is not for profit but for the welfare of students. In countries like India, schools are considered sacred just like a place of worship.

Keeping in mind this mindset of society, servant leaders are very suitable for schools. These leaders want to serve first, and in the process of serving, they acquire the wisdom, skills and authority of a leader. They are caring, helpful and sensitive to the needs of both the teachers and students of their school and work towards their success by doing constant labor themselves.Being a very good teacher in his subject, he was also involved in every aspect of running the school. Right from overseeing admissions so that the deserving candidates do not miss the opportunity in favor of powerful ones, to conducting examinations fairly, to the most impartial assessment of work both by students and teachers, as well as assigning duties to the staff keeping in mind their convenience; I always saw this leader ready to serve.

Even the principal of the school relied completely on him regarding all the academic and administrative tasks at hand. The staff and students respected him a lot. Although he has retired from service now, he is still called on by the authorities for advice regarding important matters of the school and even elsewhere in the community.I would like to conclude by saying that effective school leadership has great influence on the teachers, parents and students and can help raise academic performance leading to the prosperity and welfare of the society.

I aspire to learn from the example of the true leaders around me and follow their guidelines on how to function and lead and hopefully step in their shoes sometime in my life.