Overview. When Considering Leadership Studies, The Research

| The head teacher is responsible for the whole school from staff, pupil to finances.

Chiles Elementary School’s improvement plan is a section about the School Advisory Council (SAC), such as the name of the members, which stakeholder group each member is in (e.g., parent, business/community, or teacher), and SAC’s involvement in school activities. One of SAC’s major involvements was reviewing the previous 2014-2015 school improvement plan in order to prepare the 2015-2016 school improvement plan, which was indicated in the plan. Also indicated in the school improvement plan are lists of names for different groups, such as the school leadership team and the literacy leadership team (LLT) and their specific duties. For example, the school leadership team is responsible for meeting weekly to discuss school business (e.g., behavioral issues, curriculum needs, or guidance needs) and make decisions about the school’s learning environment. The literacy leadership team; on the other hand, “is composed of the team leaders from each grade level” and is responsible for meeting “monthly to discuss literacy issues, needs, and how successful… students are with the current plan” (Lawton M. Chiles Elementary SIP 2015-2016, pg. 18). All these information indicates how important the school value collaboration between administrators-teachers, teachers-teachers, teachers-parents, and

The second key role for principals is stated in the title of Chapter 4 –“ Being a System Player”. Fullan qualifies this role by emphasizing that a principal shouldn’t pay less attention to school matters “but rather to engage outside in order to increase learning within your school (while at the same time contributing to the betterment of the system).”

As with the importance of selecting a highly qualified principal to help raise test scores and closing achievement gaps, the selection and support of staff is also critical. Gregory F. Branch, Eric A. Hanushek, and Steven G. Rivkin’s 2013 study “School Leaders Matter” examined the effectiveness of many principles’ leadership and the effect they had on student achievement ratings. “A primary channel through which principals can be expected to improve the quality of education is by raising the quality of teachers, either by improving the instruction provided by existing teachers or through teacher transitions that improve the caliber of the school’s workforce” (Branch, pg.4). A principal must be able to continually seek out professional development, to research best practices and new educational theories to support their staff and students. If principals are to close the achievement gap, they must be willing to inform and instruct their staff on new teaching strategies. Mr. Canada, from his TED talk, “Our failing schools. Enough is enough!”, states: “You go into a place that has failed kids for fifty years and say: ‘so what’s the plan?’ And they say: ‘Well, we are going to do what we did last year, this year’. What kind of business model is that?” (TED, 2013). The principal willing to venture into new, uncharted waters may succeed or fail, but at least they

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

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.

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.

In terms of becoming a mediator and consensus builder the authors detailed the need for principals to possess relational leadership skills in order to be able to both facilitate groups and coach others on staff in the ability to facilitate their own groups, and stressed that the key to this is the ability to effectively participate in conflict resolution (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009). The authors suggested that conflict is part and parcel of school reform and that in addition to being able to deal effectively with conflict the successful principal needs to develop the ability for bringing about consensus within the group, noting that interpersonal and intrapersonal skills were as much or more important than knowledge (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

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.

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.

Effective school leadership today must combine the traditional school leadership duties such as teacher evaluation, budgeting, scheduling, and facilities maintenance with a deep involvement with specific aspects of teaching and learning. Effective instructional leaders are intensely involved in curricular and instructional issues that directly affect student achievement (Cotton, 2003). The writer of this paper acknowledges that school principals should play the role of instructional leaders, not just a school manager. The reality is that are many demands on a principals time and management skills making it difficult for most of them to spend time in classrooms, when performing teacher evaluation. Principals often make sure that teachers