Overview. When Considering Leadership Studies, The Research

Fullan believes that the overwhelming and anxiety-inducing responsibilities of today’s principals necessitate the re-imagining of the role of the principal. He begins this redefinition with what he terms a shocker: “the principal as direct instructional leader is not the solution!” (6) Indeed, he maintains that the current notion of the principal as instructional leader actually inhibits the principal’s

Chiles Elementary School’s improvement plan, for its vision statement is to strive “for excellence by actively involving all students, parents, faculty, staff, and the community in a safe, nurturing, and respectful environment” (Lawton M. Chiles Elementary SIP, 2015-2016, pg. 8). Building relationships is extremely important in order to facilitate successful collaboration, which is why the school improvement plan also listed different ways for learning student cultures, building safe and respectful learning environment, and getting parents involved. For example, in order to learn more about student cultures, teachers are encouraged to involve all students in activities to share about themselves, their families, and their work with peers. Teachers are also encouraged to meet with parents, to listen to concerns, and to learn about special needs that a child may have. To create a safe and respectful learning environment, teachers have general tasks that they must do before, during, and after school, such as providing supervision in their grade level’s common area before the first bell, utilizing school-wide classroom management system, and supervising students in the car loop or bus loop

Aside from the administrative duties, educational leadership involves soliciting the cooperation and working with teachers to improve the pedagogic processes in their schools. Furthermore, this will require team effort from all the stakeholders to achieve these goals and adherences to the school’s mission and vision.

The “school planning and management team” works with both teams. They are responsible for establishing policy guidelines and coordinate school operations. This is done with the best interest of the child in mind at all times. Planning team members collect data on the school 's programs, look for patterns, and set goals for academic achievement, the social climate, and public relations. Once this is done then the goals can be set for the comprehensive

Initially and still relatively concrete in thought, I sincerely felt that the leadership within the school hierarchy started with the principal and branched down all the way to the core teachers, specialists, and support staff, establishing that whatever the aims and jurisdictions set forth by the principal overtly shaped the nature of a school’s approach to reform and learning expectations. Additionally, teachers were expected to operate in their specific roles to advance those expectations set forth in large school staff meetings that planned

Teachers are the single largest group of adults within the school. Some teachers may be appointed as department heads or team leaders over individual grade levels or content areas. Just as the superintendent and the school board are in authority of the over the assistant superintendents and principals within the school district, the principal is in authority over faculty support staff members, and the students in the school. In addition, they are also responsible for teacher evaluations, provisions of contracts, and school budgets.

School governors are usually some parents and families, some school staff and the Headteacher of the school; so they act as a link among families’ needs and petitions and school practices and development.

The voluntary Model Principal Supervisor Professional Standards can benefit many stakeholders. State education agencies can use them in conjunction with the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders to develop a clear theory of action about how improved school leadership contributes to improved student outcomes. They can share the standards with their governor, legislature, local districts, leadership preparation programs, and professional development providers to start a dialogue about making school leadership a major focus of their strategic plan and targeting funds to specific efforts that help principals become stronger instructional leaders.

According to the authors of this article (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009), principals need to concentrate on the development of skills and behaviors in order to be successful in motivating, leading, and changing the direction of a school. The successful principal understands that there exists a fine balance of caring for others and the need to accomplish specific tasks (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009).

Administrators and teachers must work together to develop the PLC plan addressing the needs of their students. This means administrators need to trust teachers and allow them to work in a way that is autonomous from leadership. Delegating more responsibilities to staff was a way of creating a more knowledgeable community that could cope with the diversity of demands created by schools moving from being relatively simple organizations to highly complex ones. It was also recognized as in accord with the rhetoric of distributed leadership recommended as a strategy for school improvement and raising pupil attainment (Bolam et al. 2005, Webb, et al.

Jun Liu Business School, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China Xiaoyu Liu School of Labor Relations & Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China Abstract Leadership research has gone through several phases of development in the past 80 years or so. The paper identifies the major theories in each phase, and investigates the strengths and weaknesses of the research. Among those theories, transformational/charismatic leadership and leader-member exchange (LMX) are heavily discussed. The paper also discusses the future trend of research in leadership areas. Keywords: Review, Transformational

In our school, the principal is the head of our organization and since she does not have an Assistant Principal, is the head all alone. She has been principal for 10+ years at the same establishment and loves every day. She stresses to her staff the importance of student safety, student achievement, parental

The principal’s job comes with lots of responsibilities and issues that seem to never end. However depending on location, a school leader could be faced with more challenges or obstacles that they must overcome. The geomorphic area can have an effect on the overall school functions. These include student’s social economic, poverty level, and population. The three main geographical areas are suburban, urban and rural. Each of which have their own pros and cons. Whether it’s the support of the community or state funding, principals are faced with challenges regardless of the demographics. While all three have similarities and differences, the main contributing factor to an effective school is having a good principal.

Principals have been in American schools for more than a century; there are more principals than any other administrative office in education. The principal serves as a as a liaison between district administration, teachers, and community members (Mondale, 2001). When America was rural and the country’s population was low, schools were often single building, single classroom schools. As population increased and schools started to provide more services it was necessary to have managerial and clerical support for the teaching staff. These changes came along in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 19th century principals were called a principal teacher. A principal teacher was required to fulfill many roles in the community and in the school house. With the growth in population came the growth of schools, and eventually teaching and other duties required became too much for a single educator to manage (Mondale, 2001). The role of the principal became separate from that of teaching. Today, the principal main focus is on student achievement, leadership, and the managing of the school. According to Vinella (2007), school reform with the aim of increasing student achievement begins with “the leadership of the principal” (p. 67).

Number of studies have asserted that teaching experience of principal positively associates with his/her instructional leadership (Eberts & Stone, 1988; Glasman, 1984; Hallinger, 1983; Leithwood et al., 1990). Studies have identified personal values of principal to indirectly shape his/her attention to varying aspects of educational programs (Barth, 1980, 1990; Cuban, 1988; Glasman, 1984; Leithwood et al., 1990, 1992). “Research on effects of principal leadership on student learning draws its conceptual lineage more directly from research on school effectiveness and school improvement.” (Hallinger, Bickman and Davis,