The Significance of Leadership and Management in Childhood - Essay Example

The Significance of Leadership and Management in Childhood Introduction Early childhood education commonly refers to the care given to children by individuals other than family members outside the home setting. Generally, early childhood education occurs from the time of a child’s birth to the age of eight. However, in the actual sense, this kind of education normally occurs from the time of birth to the time when the child starts attending school. At this point, the child mainly learns through play which therefore becomes the focus of early childhood education. The domain of early childhood education covers social, physical, intellectual, and emotional development as well as the child’s development of creative skills. The development of children in early education greatly depends on a number of factors some of which include the management and leadership of the education centers. The paper will analyze the aspects on management and leadership with respect to early childhood education. Leadership in Early Childhood Education Generally, leadership refers to a process whereby an individual influences the others to accomplish a given objective while directing them in a more cohesive and coherent manner. In short leadership is the ability to encourage a group of individuals towards achieving a similar goal according to Anderson and Anderson (2010). Early care and education leadership is not limited to administration and management instead involving also aspects of education. In this sense, leadership in this field demands that practitioners become willing to take reasonable risks and maintain a vision that goes beyond individual organizations, services and programs. With respect to early childhood development, effective leadership encompasses a myriad of activities. Some of these activities include the identification and articulation of collective vision, effective communication, encouraging meditation, and the assessment and monitoring of practice. Other activities that fall in this category include the establishment of distributed leadership, commitment to progressive professional development, the establishment of team culture and a community that is committed to learning. Since early care centers have stakeholders that include parents and members of the community, leadership also involves encouraging and facilitating cooperation between the centre, parents and the community. Beyond doubt, leadership in early education also involves innovation, sensitivity to history, context, and diversity. According to Rodd 1996, leadership in early childhood involves kindness, patience, warmth and other attributes associated with goodness to children, parents and the community. Furthermore, leadership as noted by Rodd is concerned with orientation toward certain specific goals, good planning, confidence, and mentoring as well as professional confidence. Management in Early Childhood Education In the current world, early childhood educators face a lot of strategic and management challenges, a situation that demands their acquisition of sound management skills. Management in business terms refers to the organization and coordination of an organization’s activities in accordance with particular policies in order to achieve defined objectives. Management is a discipline which comprises interrelated functions including the formulation of organizational policies, planning, controlling and organizing as well as directing the resources of an organization towards achieving the objectives. Management can involve one person or thousands of individuals depending on the size of the organization in question. Communication Communication involves the transfer of information from one party to another. During early childhood education , educators have the responsibility to communicate with the children under their care. However, in some cases there are barriers to communication which the educators u,must seek to eliminate so as to achieve theobjectives of their care. Xxxxxx different management and leadership styles different componants of management and leadership such as communication, listening, managin change (and others). how all this must be effective in order to support children and families. has the role of leader changed? if so why? new legislations, more responsibility. what skills does a leader need? In the main body: what is leadership - what is management? do the two cross over? or is there a difference? what does the leadership books say. has the role of leader changed? if so why? new legislations, more responsibility. what skills does a leader need? the ways in which aspects of managment and leadership, such as actively listening, good communication, team work understanding different backgrounds, the need for discussion, negotiation etc is necessary for the effective running of the setting to meet the needs of children and families. In early childhood education and care, Relationship between Leadership and Management When a focus is made on the relationship between management and leadership it appears that their relationship is quantity based according to Elearn,, Pergamon Flexible Learning (2007). This means that the more there are characteristics of one, the less there are characteristics of the other. For instance in an organization with strong leadership and effective communication in leadership, there is actually less need of organization communication network management. According to Christ (1999), leadership within an organization is defined by its ability to understand the reality of given direction for a given organization. In this respect management closely relates to leadership in that it ensures transfer of information in these directions to facilitate a communications network between leaders and workers. Therefore, leadership and management relate in that the leadership sets group’s new direction as management directs and controls the group to achieve established principles. Good management must incorporate aspects of good leadership and good leadership should incorporate aspects of good management as suggested by Louis (2002). Differences between Leadership and Management Despite the close relationship between leadership and management, there appears to be a difference between the two. According to Price (2004) Leadership is all about getting the organization and people to change whether at the family level or company level while management is all about administration involving planning, budgeting and monitoring. According to Martin and Fellenz (2010), in particular, management is referred to as a function that needs to be exercised while leadership is a relationship between the leader and the followers that keeps the organization moving. For instance, on one hand at the family level, leadership involves parents directing their children. On the other hand, management involves the parents taking care of the responsibility of their children. According to Ryan (2007), leadership without management sets the direction for others to follow without necessarily considering the means of achieving the direction. In a case of management without leadership, the management controls the available resources while maintaining the status quo. According to these arguments, there is a need to combine both leadership and management even at the family level so as to incorporate the right character to the child. This is because in presence of both, setting of new directions and management of the resources to achieve the direction becomes a valuable aspect of an organization. According to Grint (1997), the definition of leadership is directly related to an organized group of individuals and its goals. Whether at the family level or organizational level leadership is bound by certain social aspects including a group, common task and differentiation of responsibilities. For instance parents who are leaders in the family are responsible for distributing responsibilities to their children. They also have a common task of taking care of them thus forming a group which is under one leadership. Keith also argues that leadership can never exist where the aspect of different responsibility does not exist. Therefore the family setup is a good example in exercise of leadership as suggested by Kellerman (2010). This is due to the fact parents have different responsibilities compared to their children. Changing Role of the Leader With the dynamics facing the society there certain roles of the leader those were deemed vital in the past and are still vital while others have diminished or modified. The leader of the past had different roles such as integrity, role model, visionary, courageous, developing talent as well as the role of ensuring satisfaction of customers in business according to Raatma (2003). However there appears to be a difference between the leader of the past and the leader of today. There has been diversity in leadership roles today compared to the past. Whether in a religious duty or economic duty the role of the leader today is to be exercised in all areas. According to Moyles (2006), the role of the leader in the past was characterized by individuality as opposed to today’s leadership role characteristic of alliances and partnerships. Today there is a lot of sharing of leadership role due to the increased roles of a leader in the technology driven society. The changing leadership role is also experienced at the family level whereby children are becoming deviant denying their parents rules according to Rost (1993). Parents today are also encouraging this deviant behavior to their inability to act as role models to their children. This can be attributed to the many responsibilities bared by the parents at work thus giving them less time to think about their children. The disadvantage with this is that such aspects of poor leadership had up being incorporated by these children in their families in future as suggested by Koestenbaum (2002). The new legislations coming with the increased development have also contributed to the changing role of leaders. For instance the long working hours have deprived the pleasure of having time with the children at home thus diminishing the aspect of the parents as leaders. The child ends up not knowing how to act as a good leader since he/she is not led by example according to Marquis and Huston (2008). Leadership Skills A good leader is bound to certain skills which makes him/her acceptable in the society whether at the family level or organization level. One of the skills is effective communication which goes behold speaking and writing. A good leader should be able to communicate information that people can understand and that makes a difference according to Kush (2009). In the past leadership communication was more authoritative and children had to obey without questioning. Therefore there is a need for the early practitioners to understand that children need to be communicated to effectively so that they learn how to be good leaders in future. Motivation is another leadership skill which argues that a leader should be in a position to encourage people to contribute to the success of the organization. This means that the leader should know the right button for each individual which when pushed the individual will act accordingly. According to Sciarra and Dorsey (2001), motivation is an important virtue in leadership and early practitioners need to recognize that children need to be motivated by their role model as they get to learn about life. A motivated child develops a sense of belonging and thus he/she is likely to have a positive perception of life and become a great leader in future. A good leader should possess good planning techniques meaning setting realistic goals and planning in time as suggested by Caroselli (2000). Planning is an important skill not only in leadership but also in the individual duties. There is a need for early practitioners to learn that children need to be organized and their activities planed for as they are unable to do it for themselves. Parents who develop effective planning techniques for their children contribute much to their children success even in schools and generally in life as suggested by Bush (2003). Teachers also need to teach children how to make a good plan for their studies to avoid failure. This way, a child is able to learn the importance of proper planning of activities hence producing good leaders of the society. There are management and leadership aspects which are important in the running of a family setting in meeting the children needs according to Ebbeck and Waniganayake (2003). One of these aspects is teamwork which is learned by the child from his/her parents at early stages of life. A health partnership between parents means the children will be good team workers. This is bound on how the parents solve their problems and how they corporate with each other and their children. According to Adair (1998), when children learn about teamwork early in life they learn how to trust which is a vital virtue in life. Another aspect is the listening aspect which is a significant trait that parents need to incorporate into their children. Being a good listener in childhood ensures success whether in academic or in real life situations as suggested by Aubrey (2007). Listening skills are developed among children and thus need to be practiced in order to make them more effective. Negotiation is an important aspect in leadership and management. Parents are required to learn how to manage their frustrations so as to be able to make negotiations with their children. Emotions are threat to negotiations and parents and teachers are encouraged to teach their children how to handle their emotions so as to participate effectively in negotiations. References: Adair, J. (1998). Leadership skills. London: CIPD Publishing. Anderson,D. & Anderson, L. (2010). The Change Leader's Roadmap: How to Navigate Your Organization's Transformation. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Aubrey, C. (2007). Leading and Managing in the Early Years. California: SAGE. Bush, T. (2003). Theories of educational leadership and management. California: SAGE Caroselli , M. (2000). Leadership skills for managers. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. Christ, W. (1999). Leadership in times of change: a handbook for communication and media administrators. London: Routledge. Ebbeck, M. & Waniganayake, M. (2003). Early childhood professionals: leading today and tomorrow. Amsterdam: Elsevier Australia. Elearn,, Pergamon Flexible Learning. (2007). Leadership and Management in Organisations. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Grint,K. (1997). Leadership: classical, contemporary, and critical approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kellerman, B. (2010). LEADERSHIP: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. Koestenbaum, P. (2002). Leadership: the inner side of greatness : a philosophy for leaders. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Koontz,H. & Weihrich, H. (2006). Essentials Of Management. New York, NY: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Kush, B. (2009). Auditing Leadership: The Professional and Leadership Skills You Need. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Louis, K.(2002). Leadership for Change and School Reform: International Perspectives. London: Routledge Martin,J. & Fellenz, M. (2010). Organizational Behaviour & Management. Auckland: Cengage Learning EMEA. Marquis, B. & Huston, C. (2008) Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. London: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Moyles, J. (2006). Effective Leadership and Management in the Early Years. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill International Northouse, P.G.(2009). Leadership: Theory and Practice. California: SAGE Price, A. (2004). Ready to lead?: a story for leaders and their mentors. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Raatma,L. (2003). Leadership. Minnesota: Capstone Press. Rost, J. (1993). Leadership for the twenty-first century. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. Ryan, R. (2007). Leadership Development: A Guide for HR and Training Professionals. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Sciarra,D.C. & Dorsey, A.G. (2001). Leaders and Supervisors in Child Care Programs. Auckland: Cengage Learning. Xxxxx REVISION   set on  2011-05-05 01:20 : I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding, the assignment is about Leadership and Management in Early Years Education and should be about how early years practitioners lead and manage in nurseries. Its not about leadership and management in families/parents. Please could you make these changes as soon as possible and if you have any questions please feel free to ask? Thankyou Topic:  An essay exploring the significance of leadership and management in childhood Instructions: Start with an introducing explainaing what you will be doing- which is principally to explore what is meant by the terms leadership and management and how the two terms overlap. State how you will then go onto to explore different management and leadership styles. Also how there are different componants of management and leadership such as communication, listening, managin change (and others). how all this must be effective in order to support children and families. You will provide examples of times when Early Years Practitoners need to understand and use these skills...for example at meetings, when managing change, daily running of the nursery or setting...and the ways in which aspects of managment and leadership, such as actively listening, good communication, team work understanding different backgrounds, the need for discussion, negotiation etc is necessary for the effective running of the setting to meet the needs of children and families. PLEASE DO NOT JUST LIST THESE BUT PROVIDE EXPLANATION OF WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT AND REFERENCE ALL IDEAS!! Instructions files attached:     1. landm_1_.pdf Created:  2011-05-04 01:31  Deadline:   2011-05-06 01:20 Time Left:  2h 23m Style:    Language Style:     Grade:   2:1  Pages:  6  Sources:   22  Read More