Free Essays on Educational Leadership

To begin with, teachers, like all individuals, should be treated with dignity, respect, and confidence ¡Xthe same way students should be treated. All teachers, whether young or old, extraordinarily competent or staggeringly inept, deserve systematic support and assistance to change, grow, improve, and share. This can only be accomplished through effective leadership. A process known as the supervisory behavioral continuum, is an effective model for displaying behaviors used in a decision-making process. Skillful and effective use of this model and knowledge of human behavior can ultimately save time, money, and prevent unneeded friction between administration and staff. The continuum gives the supervisor a method to deal effectively with everyday issues that occur at the workplace, and to come up with a workable solution that makes everyone happy. Consider the four approaches to working with and supervising teachers: non-directive, collaborative, directive-informational, and directive-control. In a situation where the teachers are self-starters, who are resourceful and curious, and who work well professionally, a non-directive approach letting the teacher take the lead in their development would be the appropriate approach. In a situation where a lack of common learning goals across departments or grade levels and teachers working mostly in private, a directive informational approach would be appropriate. In a situation where a school with a common history of fragmented efforts to improve but little open and visible collaboration among teachers to see each other at work or to review the work of each other's students, a collaborative approach would be appropriate. Finally, in a school marked by isolation, routine, privacy, stagnation or decline in the achievement of students, and resistance to individual or collective change, directive-control is necessary. The direction of leadership and development of instructional change sho... Free Essays on Educational Leadership Free Essays on Educational Leadership To begin with, teachers, like all individuals, should be treated with dignity, respect, and confidence ¡Xthe same way students should be treated. All teachers, whether young or old, extraordinarily competent or staggeringly inept, deserve systematic support and assistance to change, grow, improve, and share. This can only be accomplished through effective leadership. A process known as the supervisory behavioral continuum, is an effective model for displaying behaviors used in a decision-making process. Skillful and effective use of this model and knowledge of human behavior can ultimately save time, money, and prevent unneeded friction between administration and staff. The continuum gives the supervisor a method to deal effectively with everyday issues that occur at the workplace, and to come up with a workable solution that makes everyone happy. Consider the four approaches to working with and supervising teachers: non-directive, collaborative, directive-informational, and directive-control. In a situation where the teachers are self-starters, who are resourceful and curious, and who work well professionally, a non-directive approach letting the teacher take the lead in their development would be the appropriate approach. In a situation where a lack of common learning goals across departments or grade levels and teachers working mostly in private, a directive informational approach would be appropriate. In a situation where a school with a common history of fragmented efforts to improve but little open and visible collaboration among teachers to see each other at work or to review the work of each other's students, a collaborative approach would be appropriate. Finally, in a school marked by isolation, routine, privacy, stagnation or decline in the achievement of students, and resistance to individual or collective change, directive-control is necessary. The direction of leadership and development of instructional change sho... Free Essays on Educational Leadership â€Å"The three core tasks of expert school leaders are the standard fare of apologist for cultural realignment: articulating a vision, devising strategies to attain that vision and empowering followers† (Gronn 1996) A cursory understanding of the concept of any single leadership theory may lead to the belief that a shift to only one type of leadership style is a panacea for struggling schools. A more thorough analysis of the history and theory behind the different concepts of leadership in general and educational leadership in particular, the moral, ethical and intellectual capacity of the leader may be more significant than the leadership theory he/she practices. In trying to evaluate the efficacy of leadership styles as a practical possibility, four have been identified: transactional, instructional, transformational, and invitational and discussed with a current middle school principal. Transactional Leadership Theory Transactional Leadership as noted by Gronn, â€Å"comprises a technology of control that facilitates an exchange relationship with followers entailing reliance on the management by exception and contingent reward or inducement typical of supervisory management levels† (Gronn, 1996: 15). (See also Leithwood, 1992: 9) According to Leithwood, Transactional practices are considered to be essential to maintaining the organization while transformational practices provide the incentives for people to attempt improvement in their practices. (Leithwood, 1992: 9). This leadership style is primarily a situation where individuals and groups go their own way in an organization and pursue their own objectives, having transacted their legitimacy form the leader, either by obtaining resources to complete tasks or others forms of legitimization. Such organizations are task rather than process oriented, and less successful at managing innovation and change, where the focus is on one person, the leader. Interview response ...