Sharing Good Practice
A CLOSER LOOK AT LEADERSHIP MODELS
BY : ISSRAA KHAMIS distributed models of Leadership are nowadays widely spread among school leaders , as they have proven their success in various situations in educational institutes . While each of these models has its merits , there are also drawbacks that a school leader needs to consider before choosing a suitable model to follow .
1- Transformational Leadership
What is Leadership ?
Whenever Leadership is mentioned , the first thing that comes to mind is seniority or having power in a group . Still , authentic Leadership is the willingness to develop by setting direction , transforming visions and sharing with the community being led , to result in a better accomplishment of a mission .
Applying this concept to educational settings has started the first half of the 20th century , still being modified till now , where new leadership models have been introduced , and some traditional models have been developed to cope with the changes in the educational systems and in the societies .
While some might think that Effective school leadership is a key to farreaching education transformation , Educational leadership models can be puzzling as well as challenging . Educational leaders work hard to ; improve educational programming , hire and manage teachers and staff , prepare budgets , set curriculum standards and set school-wide policies . This consequently puts considerable pressure and loads of responsibilities on a leader to handle this alone .
Reasons for having Educational Leadership models
In order to ensure the success of any institute ; vision , mission and action plan , have to be set and clearly shared with staff as being part of the decision-making process . This can be achieved through different techniques and strategies orchestrated by the management . The presence of leadership models , sets out the qualities , knowledge , and skills that middle and senior educational leaders need to lead their schools and it ' s imperative that applying these models in schools is extremely crucial , to have a balanced educational ecosystem for teachers and most importantly : students .
In-Depth Analysis of Adjectival Educational leadership models
Adjectival leadership models have rapidly developed in the past few decades , to the extent that some old models have had adjectives attached to them in order to bring them back in a more attractive concept to get them reused .
Transformational , instructional and
Transformational is a theory of Leadership developed by James Burns ( 1978 ) that he initially used in his research on political leaders . Later on , it has also been used in organizational psychology . According to Burns , " Transformational leadership is more concerned with end-values , such as morality , justice , equality ." ( Burns , 1978 ), where a transformational leader provides the led with autonomy as well as the authority that enhances positive changes in their behaviour and attitude towards the organization . It ' s been highly noticed that a successful application of transformational Leadership lies in the application of the 4 I ' s that Bass introduced in 1985 : idealized influence , inspirational motivation , intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration .
This model has proven to fit in the education sector on many levels ; as through transformational Leadership in education , teachers , principals , and school administrators work together to elevate individual students and the whole school ecosystem .
Critique
The controversy about transformational Leadership stems from various points , one of these points is emphasizing on innovation and authenticity may lead to teachers ' burnout , as juggling of many balls in the air , trying to balance teaching with administrative work and tasks , can be a lot to handle at the same time .
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Term 2 Jan - Mar 2021 Class Time