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Monday, September 6, 2021

Educational Leadership in global perspective

 

Q. 2 Discuss the future of Educational leadership from a global perspective in detail.

 

Course:  School Leadership

Course Code 8618

Topics 

  • Educational  Leadership
  • Educational Leadership in Global Perspective
  • Educational Leadership in Global Perspective

 

Answer:

 

Only one leadership style actually derived from education; Instructional leadership. It was organic in that researchers wanted to find out how certain urban (often low-economic, high-minority) schools were having success. They went in and “identified” the traits of the leaders, and coined it “instructional leadership” (it should be noted that much of the research isolated the informational traits exhibited by the leaders). This was in the mid-1960s. Before this, extensive research had not been done on actual educational leadership. The instructional leadership model dominated for at least 15 years. Then came the massive shift transformational.

 

Transnational, transnational, servant, shared and all other leadership styles derived from research conducted in the corporate worlds. The various successes demonstrated by the extensive research made each style a target for possible implementation in the educational field. However, after 30 years of attempting to finance research, training, and implementation a shift BACK to instructional leadership was championed, along with multiple variations and hybrids.

Today, the “trend” is shared/instructional leadership.

The bottom line is, that educational leadership, like education itself, is contextual. What works perfectly in one school, May not in another. However, research suggests that when an educational leader possesses informational and instructional leadership skills (really they are damn near synonymous; Transnational is “what the leader does” and Instructional is “how they do it) school environments improve, teachers feel empowered and student success is increased.

 

Sadly, there continues to be debate about which leadership style is best (even with almost 6 decades of research available). So because of this debate educational leadership programs flip-flop with preparatory curriculums, districts shift with the latest “fad” and schools suffer. But hopefully more people such as you will continue to inquire, probe, interpret data, and shed further light on the topic.

 

It is no news that leadership as a word can be very and as a matter of fact extremely difficult to define. Therefore rather than giving it a direct and most likely unfounded definition, it would be much better to gain an understanding of what exactly it entails by deriving a conclusion after putting into consideration several profound definitions.

 

Wikipedia describes “Leadership as the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. It goes further to give the description of Alan Keith, who thinks “leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen”. A third and even simpler definition describes leadership as influencing a group of people to achieve a common goal.

 

From these three definitions of leadership, it is therefore fair to conclude or sum up that Leadership firstly is a word that cannot be meaningful in isolation and it’s difficult to explain the meaning without followership. Thus in summarizing the need for social influence, support, and achieving a common goal, Leadership for this particular paperwork can therefore be described as the “process” with which a Leader(an Individual or team) sets out to achieve the common goal of a set of people by the use of social influence.

 

In an attempt to gain a clearer image of what truly leadership encompasses, one can take to mind very simple and common-life examples of how very little things act as leaders. The door to a house for example is the one legitimate way through which the beauties and qualities of a house’s interior can be explored. In the same light, a leader is a way through which the hidden qualities and beauties of a given set of people determined to achieve a common goal can be explored. This house might be a one-bedroom apartment, probably a 7 bedroom mansion, or even a 15-bedroom palace, whichever or whatever it is, it’s out rightly uneatable that without a way (the door) inside, no one can get to see what treasures this household. This is the very same reason why doors exist right from the paper plan of the house. Yet again, so also does a leader serve as the entrance and the medium that guides his followers to achieve their common goal?

 

With the use of such a simple and direct illustration of Leadership as being the “WAY”, one can easily misconnect leadership to very simple, direct, and straight to the point. But in real case scenario, it can prove to be slightly more complicated than the door that opens the way to beautiful treasures. When for example one takes a look at Primary educational institutions, a primary school to be precise, one can experience and gain an even better understanding of how the process of leadership actually unfolds. The principal or the school director is seen as a leader of this particular institution.


 

 Coupled with this overall leader are the sub-leaders, which comprise the Vice Principal or Deputy Director, the Head of departments, the Class Teachers the Subject Teachers, and even the Class heads, Class monitors, or Class prefects as the case may be, all of which are leaders in their own jurisdiction. While being leaders, in so many different ways, these authorities also happen to be learning. As messages and instructions are passed on from the director to his Vice, a lesson or two is also taken on how to ensure efficiency is paramount. Ultimately, we can derive that the efforts and level of organization of all these leaders play a very important role in seeing to it that learning as a process takes place, this learning can be either direct or indirect. In an organization such as a primary school, there is a serious and desperate need for efficiency in all endeavors and changes need to occur for progress to be made.

 

Changes such as the development of the teaching skills available, the receptiveness of the students, and even more importantly the medium and system of communication that exists between both the teachers and the learner. For example, a class of ten students would have an entirely different style of communication compared to a class of 45 students if any form of efficiency and productivity must be resultant from these students. A leader in such a scenario must thus be capable enough to Direct both teacher and student into a state of mind that encourages easy and productive communication.


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