Values and Ethos of Learning Communities - Essay Example

The role of leaders is to create learning community culture in which understandings achieved during the course of practice, nurtured and not forgotten. Educational leadership should encourage students and inspire their interest to learning and self-improvement. Different leadership strategies mentioned above should not be used in isolation. The role of educational leadership is to maintain the community and support the core purpose of increasing the ability of all students and preparing students for the future.

Leaders must remember that their words and stance on issues impact others in both large and small ways (Sergiovanni 2000). The main educational leadership strategies include blending leadership strategy, institutional leaders, instructional leadership and transformational leadership, facilitative leadership, visionary, ethical and direct leadership (Educational Leadership& Management, n.d.). Direct leadership is what leaders do when they work directly to enhance teacher learning. Substitutes for leadership are the structures, pathways, and norms leaders build that allow, encourage, and enhance teacher learning.

In K-12 public education, the choice of leadership strategy depends upon the extent to which it matches the nature of the task, the complexity of the community setting, and the standards of quality expected. Many learning communities choose instructional and transformational leadership which help educators to meet changing learning environment and community's policies. Where task complexity is simple, direct supervision involving telling students what to do, watching them do it, and making corrections as needed might be an appropriate choice.

But as complexity increases, strategies closer to mutual adjustment make more sense. These learning communities rely on purposing and shared values, standardizing knowledge and skills, and mutual adjustment as control strategies if they want to be successful (Educational Leadership, n.d.).Facilitative, visionary and ethical leadership allows educators to form and correct basic moral values and preferences of diverse student audience. Using these strategies, educators become more sophisticated in their ability to develop capacity for teaching and leading in schools creating effective learning communities based on trust and respect.

The task of facilitative leadership is to encourage the involvement of students at all educational levels. Visionary leadership is aimed to create a certain vision of culture and values shared by a particular community. This is one of the most important strategies which help educators to prepare students for various roles in their respective communities. Critics argue that ethical leadership "should have and be willing to act on a definite sense of ethical standards" (Educational Leadership& Management, n.d.).

K-12 community leaders should create an effective environment and control that students are well served, and that teachers are supported in their efforts in behalf of students. A leader's role is to engage teachers in determining and articulating a vision of excellence for all students. Communication in K-12 public education should include conversation about school issues and the needs of children with meetings to analyze data and plan