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Why is leadership so important in education
Challenges of leadership in the educational system
Participative school leadership
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To me, one becomes a competent leader if he/she is in constant training, active practice during which mistakes are made and fixed after the leader receives interpersonal feedback and is involved in self-reflection. Wisdom comes from admitting the mistakes we make, learn from them, and move forward.
3. Forward Looking – means being able to choose an appropriate direction for the organization.
The school community wants to be sure that the school leader has a well defined orientation towards future. They want to know what the school will look like, feel like, be like when it arrives at its goal in six months or six years. Even though the amount of work to be done in the here and now is overwhelming, effective leaders spend a significant amount
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My leadership will strive to promote and sustain an efficient teaching-learning environment in which data will be examined and evaluated in order to meet the school’s needs. However, it is not enough to just implement changes. They must be monitored and evaluated, so that we can identify accomplishments and further develop the areas that need improvement. In addition, I am a firm believer in research-based instructional approaches that will balance data driven decisions of my school …show more content…
Motivational leaders inspire the group through motivation to convert purpose and vision into actions that will produce outcomes. They uplift the members from low levels of needs fixated on survival by appealing toward the individual’s innate desire to achieve higher levels of development and learning (McLeod, 2007). To achieve this goal, the leaders make clear and powerful descriptions of positive outcomes, give motivational speeches, and lead positive conversations. Leaders display optimism and enthusiasm, inspire teamwork, and persuade the group to surpass their personal interests for the organizational interests. Stimulated, the group members integrate themselves into the vision, culture and environment of the organization. By setting high standards and making the vision meaningful, the leaders make sure that each member commits to the shared vision and fulfills his or her role in the process (Marzano, Waters, & McNulty,
One may wonder exactly what it is that qualities a strong leader possesses. A strong leader is determined, and strong willed. They must be of good judgment, and without bias. They cannot easily be persuaded, and they are firm, yet at the same time, a good lead must also empathize with his subordinates, and have the best interest at heart for said subordinates, at all times. However, with that being said, a good leader cannot be afraid to discipline his subordinates when necessary. Unmistakably, being a leader is a very difficult feat – one which not everyone can accomplish. A leader must be an authority, a friend and a counsellor, all at once. They must be responsible, and always take into account the disadvantages of a situation. Not everyone is suitable to be a leader, whereas, just about anybody can be a good role model.
It takes a long time to become an effective and respected leader but can evaporate very quickly with one misstep. It needs to be nurtured and cultivated every day. My personal leadership style is to observe and correct. As a junior member, one of my Chief told me, “I don’t care how long it takes you to do a job as long as you do it right the first time because if it is wrong you will be the one fixing it.” That resonated with me because it allowed me to take risks and learn from my mistakes making me a better technician. I firmly believe one of the best learning tools is failure. His statement let me know it was all right to fail but if you do you will be learning from it. Identifying weaknesses within my leadership abilities and striving to correct them will result in being consistently looked upon a leader within our
To inspire and influence others, a leader must possess many skills and abilities. As motivational speaker Peter Northouse, states, “a leader should be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant” (Northouse, 2013) Moving an entire group of individuals toward a singular goal is a considerable undertaking. Without effective communication skills and a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished, one will feel like they are trying to herd cats rather than leading.
In order for a leader to be a leader, he/she must begin with the assumption that you are the one who matters most. As a leader you have to possess that level of confidence in yourself that you are capable of leading yourself “before you can lead others”. And when you develop this belief then you are better able to affirmatively influence “on others”. A leader needs to “believe” in himself and have the confidence that whatever you say will excite and what you do can motivate others. You must be optimistic about what you do, to have some relevance to being in existence.
To become a truly effective leader, one must encapsulate the various behaviors related to the aforementioned course learnings in his/her persona and demonstrate such behaviors daily. This course has allowed me to identify four behaviors that all leaders must portray to be effective. The first of which is that a leader must be inspirational. To do so, a leader must set the appropriate vision and direction for the organization and provide a path to achieving defined goals. Additionally, a leader must induce the proper levels of motivation so that each employee has sufficient incentive to work towards the organization’s goals. As discussed in the class, motivation can be accomplished by factors such as rewarding hard work and providing the correct opportunities to employees. While these are motivating in that employees desire to be fairly compensated and to be doing work they deem valuable, inspiration comes more from organizational culture. A leader will be inspirational by setting a tone that appreciates each employee’s contribution, no matter how small in scale it is. Further, employees are inspired when they work collaboratively in a group setting and can capitalize on individual strengths to drive organizational goals.
Many Scholars characterize the core qualities and skills necessary for an effective leader. Useem defines leadership as “Creating a vision and translating that vision into actions”. Historically, an effective leader was assumed to be exceptionally knowledgeable, authoritative, and dominate. Those leaders applied the command and control method to lead an organization. With the passage of time, this definition has been changed. The modern definition of an effective leader is honest, courageous, trustworthy, inspirational, and result-oriented. Today’s leaders create shared values and vision, and empower others to achieve their targets.
It is important that leaders are competent in their leadership. “Being competent doesn’t mean that a leader knows how to do everything, but rather that they know what to do and how to get it done” (Leadership Now, 2007, para. 2). Subordinates should be able to observe an educational leader’s competence by their actions. Socrates (cited in Leadership Now, 2007, p. 4) asserted that “one who clearly knows best what ought to be done will most easily gain the obedience of the others.” Competent leaders will gain the loyalty and trust of
To inspire and influence others, a leader must have many skills and abilities. As motivational speaker Jim Rohn, states, “ the challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” (2010) Moving an entire group of individuals toward a singular goal is a considerable undertaking. Without effective communication skills and a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished, one will feel like they are trying to herd cats rather than leading.
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.
In developing my own educational leadership model (MELM) I began with establishing what I believe the goal of education should be, since leaders by definition are leading people towards something. The goal of education is to effectively teach students the essential skills and knowledge they will need to establish a productive, positive, self-sufficient life where they can be active members of their communities. An effective leader, while working towards this goal will need to consider the present conditions and demands of the environment they are a part of. In the field of education, both internal and external factors are of crucial importance when developing a plan to lead for success. However, one must note the variables in education are different than those the business sector face, for example; student performance, ability and cultural differences; availability/condition of supplies and materials; goal; educator’s capability, views and attitudes; conditionality of economic support; openness/hostility of influencing communities; state or government performance mandates. A leader who knows where they (students, school, district, community) are now, can approach goals more clearly and develop more effective strategies to arrive at them.
Motivation and Leadership are intrinsically linked in the fact that one allows an easement in the process of the other. Without the ability to use the mutual relationship of leadership to influence the motivators of followers, leaders stagnate and are limited by their own inability to accomplish all that must be for real change to occur. In less Rostonian terms (that is, based on Rost (1993)), without a motivated group of followers leaders are stranded and not achieving to a level of excellence. This paper will discuss some areas of importance for motivation in leadership as well as an application to leadership theory and a discussion on personal motivators.
Leadership is trait that is extremely important in any society. Leadership is known as the way people attempting to make a difference in a situation. However, I believe that it is better said to be a way of influencing others actions. Leadership is usually connected to a great leader that affected his or her followers in a dynamic way. Throughout the semester for my leadership class, I have expanded the knowledge in numerous ways. I now have fully understanding of the purpose and process of leadership to a society. Being a leader one must maintain an image of being the role model. I believe that this is leader should be who is someone who has the ability to influence, encourage, listen, and nurture. They are able to inspire, stimulate, persuade, shape, and have an effect on others.
Leadership is found not just at work but all around us. In any situation, leaders take a step forward and take charge of the situation. It can be at home, at work or at any other place. Leaders are never born, they become leaders because they have the credibility and people would love to follow them.
I have a lot of experience in many things from education, customer service so forth and to end with parenting, so I have several styles of influence, power and leadership and all of which I have used, just not in this order. To influence is the capacity of the power of a person’s things in which they may be compelling force or able to produce effects and actions. Power means the ability to act or the capability of doing to accomplish something, as in the lecture power is the ability to marshal resources. Leadership is the function or position to direct or guide a group or groups of people, or as the lecture states the process of inspiring and guiding others to participate. It is my personal opinion that with all these styles a person still needs self-management as discussed in this semester as well. You cannot have someone that may has influence, power and leadership, yet lacks self-awareness. How can they lead a pack? My previous jobs have many individuals that portrayed to be leaders whom pretended to have power that influenced us, however they lacked self-management, and all of the above.
More often organizations are getting into bigger risks in the market with their leaders in nowadays economy. The resistance to change is a reason why organizations trying harder to keep earlier recognized reputation within clients and community. The theme of leadership is relevant for each person as it occurs almost to everyone during the lifetime or to those who at least were a part of a team.