Introduction
I don’t have as much teaching experience as some that are in this course, but in my short time I’ve encountered many situations that I consider to be reasonably significant problems for a leader to manage. One in particular stands out to me for many reasons. First it’s one of the bigger problems I’ve had to face in my teaching career and secondly, I am still currently struggling with this issue; it has not been resolved. I am providing this particular situational problem as my own personal experience from a teacher standpoint and then evaluating and analyzing it from an administrative position.
There are so many different theories and models of leadership behaviors and narrowing it down to only a few or assigning them to
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He was coming from the same building where he held a higher position as Process Coordinator for several years. The school year started very rough to say the least. It is a classroom of eight boys all with very difficult behaviors and disabilities and at least four children needed a one on one paraprofessional and sometimes two on one, although only one child is provided this through his IEP. This was already looking like it would be a challenging year. But with consistency, determination, support, and working together with the teacher and all three paraprofessionals, we could do it. The experience and resources between the four of us combined seemed like a fairly unstoppable team. However, it became evident to the paraprofessionals very quickly that we were not all on the same page as the teacher. This wasn’t just a conflict of personalities or disagreements on how things should be ran in the classroom, there were very obvious mistakes that should not be made, mistakes that affected academics, progress of behavior management, and even the students’ safety. There were instances of children being left alone in the classroom unsupervised, instigating bad behaviors, undermining the paraprofessionals, inconsistency, playing favoritism towards the more general education kids, and the list goes on and on. These problems are not such that we could keep them to ourselves, we had to involve our leaders.
Looking at this situation from a
ways to lead, and each style comes with its own pros and cons. Identifying which style of management is
A1. Leadership Style Upon conducting research, it is clear that the definition of “leadership” is not agreed upon. It is fluid, based upon many perceptions, situations, and surroundings. According to Robinson (2010), adopting a specific style of leadership is rather futile as it is, “contingent on the personal traits of the leader, the people being led, and the nature of the activity.” Tools are available to help guide potential leaders in determining a preferred style of leadership. For example, utilizing the “Leadership Self-Assessment
The leader behavior approach is the focus of what people do as a leader or leadership style rather than the characteristics leaders inherit as a leader. It is the assumption that the actions of a person opposed to their innate mental state. Because leaders can learn through teaching and observation; specific behaviors are the focus of a leader. An important study of this theory was conducted by the Ohio State University, and the purpose was to identify common leadership behaviors. The study and research uncovered that there are two linked groups of behavior.
When asked what were the most challenging issues in supervision, Ms. Lord stated that dealing with personality differences, supervisee resistance, and training management were issues that stood out the most for her. Ms. Lord described herself as a team player who will do what is necessary to serve her students so if she needs to stay at work later than normal, perform tasks that aren’t necessarily in her job description, etc. that is what she will do. She
External factors, internal factors, and relationships all play a huge role in leadership. Society creates a stereotypical idea of what leadership should look like. Berger (2014) considered a conceptual framework that provides three major categories of major approaches to leadership, and how these approaches lead to a better clarification of leadership and its entities. These categories include: achievement, relationships, and values. The achievement category consists of 3 sub-categories (individual, behavioral, and contingent) that all focus on ways in which leaders are defined by their ability to achieve goals. They focus on a particular individual as a
Since the beginning of recorded history, leadership has been one of, if not the most important elements in the success or failure of an endeavor. This is whether it involved a prehistoric hunting party or ruling the Roman Empire. Today, leadership is recognized as a vital factor in an organization’s quest to be productive and profitable. For an organization to be competitive and achieve optimum success in the 21st century, it is vital that they employ effective leaders that will be able to communicate their vision and goals, motivate their employees and develop trusting and loyal relationships with its stakeholders. There is no one or best way to accomplish this mission. There have been numerous leadership theories and styles which have been developed over time which can enable leaders to choose which method would be most effective for them in establishing collaborative working relationships and a respectful team environment in a group setting (Landis, Eric A; Hill, Deborah; Harvey, Maurice R, 2014).
Furthermore, there are different theories which give insights about why some leaders lead the way they do. One of these theories is the behavioral theory, it emphasized on what leaders do and their leadership styles. The behavioral theory explains three different types of leadership styles namely: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. An autocratic leader makes plans, gives direction on how to execute them, and makes decisions for the group. These type of leaders are highly power control. They give little or no freedom to the members. Whatever they say is final. On the other hand, democratic leaders allow members to participate in the decision making. They seek opinions of the members. On the other hand, laissez-faire leaders allow members to do whatever they like. This type of leaders does very little planning or decision making thus fail to encourage others to do it (Weiss and Tappen, 2015 p.
Thus, we can define leadership as a coaching model, or a framework to use as an underlying structure to build teamwork, confidence, improve performance and behavior, and in most any aspect (business, education, sports, etc.) utilize these theories as a way to actualize goals. Because humans are so unique and individualized, there are a number of theories from which to draw from and most agree that the integration of a multidisciplinary approach and field of knowledge is what allows one to become both more tactical and strategic.
This is why, Organizational renowned scholars have been studying of this very significant topic of leadership for literally hundreds of years. Because. It is very complex, not simple one.
Leadership theory, or the scientific approach to understanding leadership, is a vast group of theories that try to explain what makes, or constitutes a great leader. There are many schools of thought on this subject and many pull from existing psychological theories, like Behavioral Theory, Developmental Theory, Personality Theory and Learning theory (Myers, 2014). There are three main leadership theories: trait theory, which suggests that some are born with certain traits that make them an effective leader, while behavioral theory focuses on how leader behave, while contingency theory addresses how the situation influences leadership.
All the theories speak about the same aspect of leader, that they can access the key follower and situational factors.
Van Wart (2011), “Because leadership is a large social phenomenon as well as highly complex, we should not be surprised that many theories have been advanced to explain it” (p.72). Van Wart writes “….a bewildering number of theories have been advanced to explain a variety of aspects of leadership, each with its own partial wisdom or advantages” (p.72). Leadership style can be define as a leader 's style of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. There are many different styles that can be used, exhibited and implemented by leaders.
major problem leadership research and has been lack of agreement about which theory behavior categories are relevant and meaningful. It is difficult to integrate findings from five decades of research unless the many diverse leadership behaviors can be integrated in a parsimonious and meaningful conceptual An emerging solution is a framework. hierarchical taxonomy with three metacategories (task, relations, and change behavior). Confirmatory factor analysis of a behavior
Leadership theories are attempts to answer some of the question people have about leadership. These theories range from simple “armchair philosophies” about the personal characteristics and effect relationship between leaders and followers and situations.