Administrative leaders must have a clear vision of their school, a plan for getting there, and an ability to communicate effectively their mission and goals to the learning community. Leaders must recognize how to achieve the process of change by challenging well-established beliefs and behaviors of the community. Encourage resistors to adapt to innovative ideas in the school community. Dr. Hunter clearly articulated goals to all stakeholders in all aspects of the school culture. The guides developed by the Local Administrators Partnership Strand (ILIAD) addresses standards and procedures on ensuring quality service as leaders. These standards and guidelines aligned to leadership standards from the National Association of Elementary School Principal (NAESP) (www.naesp.org) an ILIAD partner. The unstructured interview analysis will describe leadership styles and roles, curriculum development, and evaluation methods.
Leadership Styles
The strength of the school is shown through the school capacity, achievements, and instructional values. Instructional plans can include collaboration of the lesson plans and activities to promote innovative ideas to obtain set goals and objectives. I realize leadership is complex and the guidelines given can help you be effective in leading change for students, teachers, and community leaders. With the usage of the guidelines, your leadership style prepares leaders for expectations and demands in implementing procedures and programs.
Research by Lewin, Litt-pitt, and White define leadership styles to provide direction, motivate staff, and implement plans. The leadership style, are authoritative, democratic, or laissez-faire approach to influence growth. The authoritative leadership sty...
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... It is imperative student obtain knowledge to compete in this society and global world. Effective administrators and educators must update skills and design quality instruction, which will engage all students to gain knowledge. There is a definite need to transform leadership in American school as well as teachers alter the paradigm in the teaching and learning arena.
Works Cited
National Association of Elementary School Principals (2002). Retrieved from
http://www.naesp.org
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002. Public Law 107 – 110, 20 U.S.C. §6381, SEC.
1281. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov
Nolan, J. F. (2008). Teacher supervision and evaluation: Theory into practice 2nd ed. Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Son, Inc.
Oliva, P. (2009). Developing the curriculum for educational management corporation. Garland,
TX: Addison Wesley.
Ms. Hall has had many years of public education experience and higher education training in which to hone her leadership style and framework. She started her career as a teacher in the Kirkwood School District. She then served as an assistant elementary principal at both Ritenour and Pattonville School Districts before being selected to serve as the assistant superintendent of the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District in 2008. Throughout her career she continued to pursue her education as a means o...
Standard 1 of the Florida Principal Leadership Standards (2011) describe the priority of the school leader as, “effective school leaders demonstrate that the student learning is their top priority through leadership actions that build and support a learning organization focus on student success”. Our number one priority and focus is and always should be our students. They are the reason behind our professions. It is the faculty the ones who should be supported by the administrators. The leaders should celebrate their success, encourage them, support their assertive instructional decisions, and motivate them each day to create the right conditions for learning. The principals must plan to project growth the most accurate possible, employing all the help that they could get for this challenging task. Students should not be affected because qualified teachers are not available. Strategic schools use the resources at had to relocate, and alleviate the human resources problems.
Leading organizations of school administrators offer educators various opportunities to encourage educators to become leaders. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has mandated that leaders be better prepared for the task of providing quality education to all. NCLB “… is forcing all educational stakeholders to face the weakness of contemporary school leadership and is making it impossible to ignore the need for higher quality principals” (Hale & Moorman, 2003, p.1). It is believed that all educators can be and are leaders in their own right. A leader is a visionary and has the ability to inspire others to aspire to greatness. Of the numerous opportunities that are offered, those that are most beneficial include but are not limited to leadership training programs, professional development, and creating shared leadership opportunities for teachers to become leaders. The systems “…that produce our nation’s principals are complex and interrelated – and governed by the states. Each state establishes licensing, certification and re-certification” (Hale & Moorman, 2003, p.1). States use the ISLLC standards “…as the framework for preparation programs and in service professional development of school superintendents, principals, and other leaders” (Hale & Moorman, 2003, p.3).
The policy “No Child Left Behind (NCLB)” is a policy where Federal legislation has mandated that children be tested, and where there is compliance with standards. Simply means, that all children must meet standards. The standards are defined by the states, and all children will be subject to testing, starting from as early as third grade. The students will be tested annually, in order to ensure that they are getting the type of education that they are entitled to, as determined by their performance on standardized tests.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is an education policy originally proposed by President George Bush in 2001. Since then President Barrack Obama has added modifications in order to better educate the students of our Nation. The purpose of the NCLB is to enable all children to the same rights for education. Each child, regardless of race, gender or location should be able to obtain equal education. The policy requires highly educated teachers and annual state testing that is submitted to the government.
Supervisors can be flexible and consistent in their leadership styles at the same time. Leadership style is a consistent pattern of behavior displayed by a leader over time
Gorton, R. A., & Alston, J. A. (2012). School leadership & administration: Important concepts, case studies, & simulations. (9th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. [Kindle Version] (pp. 1-323).
Building Leadership Capacity in Schools by Linda Lambert touched on a number of key ideas. Lambert provided examples from different schools, principals, and her experiences on obtaining and sustaining leadership capacity while developing her character. Lambert points out that to build leadership capacity in schools there should be participation by parents, students, and staff. Also these are the same characteristic as to becoming a great character in society. In this paper I will talk about the staff and there level of participation. Lambert points out that conversation with individuals about their roles as a leader should take place as individuals take on the task of leadership and character development. One key element in the text was the level of participation and degree of skillfulness for leadership capacity while trying to discover your character. Another element in the text that I found key was to break the dependency relationships on staff and the principal. As we work toward building leadership capacity and charcter, it will take time and time is a big factor on building leadership capacity because there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done that we would like to do without strategically planning leadership meetings.
Before entering the education field, I worked in the nonprofit arena for an educational association over 16 years. I moved through the ranks and ended up as vice president of personnel and special events. The association president believed in training, therefore, I attended many, many workshops aimed at training those promoted to become strong and competent leaders within the organization. It also helped that I was young and anxious to make a successful track record so, I devoured every class that could move me further up the ladder of leadership. Analyzing the standards of The Professional Standards for Educational Leaders, suggest that this is an attempt to define what school excellence and successful teaching of students looks like.
Thomas Sergiovanni (2015) describes three essential dimensions of leadership as “the heart, head, and hand of leadership.” The heart describes those characteristics within the school leader that reflect personal “beliefs, values, and dreams.” The head of leadership refers to the practice of teaching and educating. The hand of leadership reflects actions taken by school leaders with respect to management behaviors. (p. 5) Within these elements, there is room for personal choice in how leadership is practiced and it is incumbent on new principals to find an individual leadership style that responds to the uniqueness of each school.
My leadership model would keep quality education and its goal as the universal, underlying focus or vision much like the Instructional Leadership Model. Similarly, capable and motivated educators would be sought, curriculum and instruction would be reviewed for effectiveness, training or additional support would be given to develop teachers’ abilities and appropriate, relevant textbooks and supplies would be provided. However, one key departure from the Instructional Leadership Model is th...
In this paper I will look at the four major leadership styles, their characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, and in what situations a particular leadership style is desired. Additionally, I will look at my leadership style and how I acquired this style throughout my career.
In the book Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional, Kauchak and Eggen (2014) identified schools as social systems and wrote, “Social systems work effectively when their components work together to meet their goals” (p. 181). The components listed were the staff and faculty members of a school, the physical building of the school itself and surrounding areas, and the curriculum. The characteristics of an effective school such as its optimal size, good leadership, high collective efficacy in teachers, teachers involving students in learning activities and lessons, frequent assessment of students by teachers and continual feedback from teachers to students, safe and orderly environment, and positive parental and community involvement may all be grouped with these components. For instance, the staff and faculty members of a school include teachers and the leader. The physical building itself and its surroundings include the size of the school as well as the parents and community surrounding it. The two previous components can both be associated with a safe and orderly environment. Plus, the curriculum is related to interactive instruction and the monitoring of student progress.
It takes a knowledge base and an innovated mind to succeed in a competitive society. Preparing to succeed starts in early education programs where students learn discipline, structure, and organization in a safe learning environment. A teacher's positive relationship, high expectations and confidence in students allow for students to learn in an environment that is conducive for learning. Varied student activities and instructional methods arranged for students to engage in, allows for individuality, growth and a quality education. School administrators have an important role in their community. Their professional behavior must be respected and their leadership must be accepted by those that they serve. They follow the National Association of Elementary School Principals and National Association of Secondary School Principals (NAESP/NASSP) ethical code of behavior. This ethical code helps to assist the profession in protecting those deserving its protection. It also helps to raise the confidence and conscience of administrators on behavioral issues. Fundamental ethical principles are always present to guide administrators in confronting, predicting or defining situations. The administrator serves in a public school. He/she is responsible for providing educational opportunities to all and displaying exemplary professional leadership. The motivational factor for the educational administrators is to do what is best for the student. This is important because students are the future of our country.
As mentioned before, leadership styles take an important role in running a school. Unfortunately, many principals have not yet defined their leadership style and struggle to administrate their school. They are responsible not only of teachers and students, but of every employee in the school. They have the power to control all the resources available to improve and meet academic goals. Despite their power, principals need to identify appropriate leadership styles to succeed as