Improving The Practice Of Leadership

The ever-changing landscape of education and school accountability has given rise to a renewed focus on shared leadership. In the past, the principal was viewed as the primary decision maker within a school. However, Glickman (1989) points out that it is impossible for school principals to effectively complete all the necessary instructional and managerial tasks within schools. He contends that some teachers have more leadership abilities than the actual administrators and that “in successful schools, principals aren’t threatened by the wisdom of others, instead, they cherish it by distributing leadership” (Glickman, 1989, p. 8).

According to the textbook, Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice, there are over 100 definitions of the word “leadership”, and all of them are unique in their own way (Northouse, 2015, p.1). There are so many different aspects to leadership that is it nearly impossible to have one definition that covers every area. Each and every person that is a considered a leader has his or her own way of leading because every situation, whether it be work, a team, at home, etc., calls for different and distinctive ways of leading people. Northouse states that there are six main aspects of leadership; it’s a trait, ability, skill, behavior, relationship, and an influential process (Northouse, p. 3-6). Giving a clear answer as to what leadership is defined as is very difficult, but this paper will talk about my specific leadership skills and what leadership means to me.

Currently, I am not an employee of any learning organization, school district or educational system. However, I am involved and Chair the School Advisory Council (SAC) of Greenland Pines Elementary. This opportunity granted me a unique opportunity to observe the management of two different principals with their individual leadership styles. Furthermore, I contrasted my business practices from my own company and military service to coincide with this case study. The purpose of this paper is a comprehensive written outlining the processes presented by the educational leadership at Greenland Pines Elementary. With this in mind, we need to understand the concept of educational leadership.

“Understanding leadership in early childhood has been plagued by its confusion with the concept of management” (Rodd, 2013, p. 19). The quotation highlights the overlapping of different roles of leadership and management. It is true in respect that people misunderstand the true nature, roles and responsibilities of both the roles because the educational leaders play the role of manager in early childhood setting and the managers perform the duties of educational leader. The following essay will discuss the role of the leaders, which is different from the managers in early childhood settings. There will be discussion on the different skills and dispositions required to perform the role of a leader and a manager. There are different models and theories, which influence the way of working of the leaders and managers. First, the essay will explain the Collin’s level five leadership model; and Katz’s four development stages model followed by the Formal, Collegial and Cultural models of educational management in early childhood setting. Finally, the essay will compare and contrast the current theories of leadership; the charismatic theory, the transactional theory and the transformational theory of leadership. The different theories’ implication to the early educational settings will also be discussed through the essay.

A State Representative, Randy Richards, organized a press conference coveting to sway a proposal for a bill to a avert state agencies and other health care providers from offering prenatal care to undocumented immigrants and billing the cost to Medicaid (Sharp, 2011, p. 72). In the press conference, he accuses undocumented immigrants from coming to the United States to take advantage of the Medicaid system by taking services away from the American Citizens who pay into the system with their taxes. When the floor was opened to the press to ask question or to elaborate on the proposal for the bill his answer were very vague or he eluded the question by saying, “…That is not the point…” (Sharp, 2011, p. 72). The Executive Director of the Health Care Authority, Mike Foley, decides to hold a press conference later that day to clear the air with factual information and providing laws stating, health care cannot be denied to anyone in search of preventative or medical attention. He articulates prenatal care for illegal women cost less than a $1000.00 and when the child is born, they become a natural American Citizen and how they deny service to an American. If these preventative services were denied during the pregnancy and the child is born with a serious medical condition it will cost the state over $130,000.00 (Sharp, 2011, p. 73) to treat the child for the rest of their life. Randy Richards, the representative, became infuriated and took great offense that Mike Foley, the

An increase in patient acuities, readmissions, and requirement for patient satisfaction among other issues has created a greater need for more registered nurses in the hospital setting. Quality and safe patient care is a direct correlation to the number of staff. With the demand of nurses on the rise, some health care institutions have not readjusted the nurse-patient ratios and the result is decreased patient satisfaction, increased mortality/morbidity in patients, more health care associated infection, and decreased employee satisfaction; leading to burnout and decreased staff

Educational leaders play significant roles in the modern society. Their effectiveness depends on their strengths. Primarily, it is vital having a comprehensive understanding of who is an educational

Various research efforts have aimed to examine the effects of leadership on performance. In recent times, however, the emerging focus on leadership has particularly been on leadership styles. Beginning from business organizations, the influence of leadership styles has been studied even in educational settings. Among the leadership styles that have received significant coverage is the transformational leadership style. It is of significance for one to have the ability to analyze the research methodologies that the researchers have employed in past studies and to be able to identify the best practices that research ought to employ. Critically, research methods form the foundation of a researcher’s work and knowledge and usage of the methods are crucial to research. This paper seeks to describe the research methodologies of five journal articles related to educational leadership after which it will review one of the five journals by providing research aspects that can be conducted differently. Choosing the most appropriate methodology to use in a research is critical to the research’s success and requires one to develop a sound understanding of the alternatives approaches.

Educational leadership has changed and evolved through the years as a result of dramatic changes in the school culture, student demographics, environment, science, technology, and economy. Given the complexity and unpredictability of the demanding challenges to educate all children, prospective school leaders may find it desirable to define their own beliefs about instructional supervision and evaluation as they prepare for the rigor of school leadership practice. While enacting supervision, a supervisor is guided by certain values, assumptions, beliefs, and opinions that support the purpose and process of supervision (Sergiovanni & Starratt, 2006). This can be described as the supervisor’s

Instructional leadership has often been found to be a core component of effective schools and instructional; leadership is a constituent of teacher-leader. Effective teachers are task and person-oriented and they are high in the leadership dimension of consideration to others and in keeping to structure, whilst being creative. It said about teacher leaders, too, that they have vision. In fact, all leadership demands vision, and effective teachers can be no different. To effectuate important and lasting change, they have to have hope in their students and a vision to accomplish their objectives. These teachers have a hunger for improvement and they have the skill to communicate that vision to others, to develop a shared vision, a "shared covenant" (Sergiovanni, 1990, p. 216). It bonds them together in a specific cause. Finally, the effective teacher-leader too is also goal oriented focusing on the outcome of her role and

There are always chances and possibilities to become a good leader regardless the odds against you, gender, age, race, education, previous experience, etc. This paper defines what leadership is and it explains the relationship between leadership and influence. It also highlights the importance of finding opportunities to develop skills and creating strong to become a good leader. It is also emphasized the power of influence that comes from motivating your team, to improve performance and satisfaction and that setting a clear goal is mandatory for good leadership. The conclusion summarizes all the topics under discussion.

Leadership changes are also seen in many schools as well. There is a change in not only roles, but alterations are noted in relationship and responsibilities. There is change in not only the roles, but the responsibilities and the relations are effected is well. It is seen that in this form of leadership, there is less tendency of hierarchical within an organization.

There is a positive correlation between leadership styles and the job-satisfaction in education providers. The determinants of job satisfaction, leadership is viewed as an important predictor and plays a central role. Leadership is a management function, which is mostly directed towards people and social interaction, as well as the process of influencing people so that they will achieve the goals of the organization.Leader is leading the human resource function, collaborating with other functions and providing leadership to them, setting and enhancing the standards for strategic thinking (Armstrong (2006). Leadership effectiveness many different types of outcomes havebeen used, including the performance and growth of the leader’s group or organization, its preparedness to deal with challenges or crises, follower satisfaction with the leader, follower commitment to the group objectives, the psychological well-being and development of followers, the leaders’ possession of high status in the group, and theleader’s advancement to higher positions of authority in the organization (Oad, 1999).

The second type of leadership is the situation where the school principal assumes that schools are like factories (Deal and Peterson, 1994). In this case, the leader practicing this leadership method is an overseer of the activities of the schools that they manage. For instance, they ensure that teachers teach as appropriate and allow the children to learn more. However, it exerts much pressure on the teaching fraternity and the learners thus making their learning institutions boring and unwelcoming to the learners. The process of autocracy ensures with this leadership model making moral regret to the parties involved in the learning process. The model as discussed above is the technical type of leadership.

Focus of this research is to find out the concept of leadership from an Islamic perspective,