Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Relevance of educational leadership in education
Leadership in educational settings
Leadership strengths and weaknesses
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Relevance of educational leadership in education
Introduction
Leadership today has gone from a one dimensional format to a multifaceted algorithm with theories and methods differing from one organization to another. Businesses and governmental institutions will invest money and time to develop employees to help each of them grow leadership skills with the goal to increases productivity. The success and even failure of an organization depends on its ability of those individuals in leadership positions to be an effective influencer to its employees. Educational leadership today brings on many challenges as the focus is on the success of the students which are directly influenced by those who are instructing and mentoring them. Therefore, there are a few key leadership characteristics of successful educational leaders that are important for the growth of a school system to reach national educational standards.
Educational Standards and Leadership Characteristics
For educational leaders of today, standards and the implementation of those policies are being directly influenced by governmental departments from the national level, to local school boards of public and private educational systems (Green, 2013). Hence, the importance to create a standardized approach to identifying individuals who can lead an organization and master the key components of educational leadership, the Interstate School Leader Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) was developed. The current ISLLC standards were designed to create a consistent policy in how universities and colleges will develop school leadership characteristics for school administrators (Green, 2013). The six indispensible ISLLC Standards are specific guidelines for school administers to increase graduation rates, help today’s student prepar...
... middle of paper ...
..., or even the janitor (Maxwell, 2005). Investing in resources to educate all levels of a school district will pay dividends to those within the system and the communities surrounding each school.
References
Dix, E.L., Emery, L.F., Le, B., (2014). Committed to the honor code: An investment model analysis of academic integrity. Social Psychology of Education, 1(20). doi: 10.1007/s11218-013-9246-2
Green, R.L. (2013). Practicing the Art of Leadership. A Problem-Based Approach to Implementing the ISLLC Standards. Pearson Education, Inc.
Maxwell, J.C. (2005). The 360-degree Leader: Developing your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Onorato, M. (2013). Transformational Leadership Style in the Educational Sector: An Empirical Study of Corporate Managers and Educational Leaders. Academic Journal, 17(1), 33.
Gorton, R. A., & Alston, J. A. (2012). School leadership & administration: Important concepts, case studies, & simulations. (9th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. [Kindle Version] (pp. 1-323).
The major concepts of this article relate to the ineffectiveness of school leadership programs. Arthur Levine found that a majority of the programs were inadequate. He noted four areas in which these programs lacked efficiency. These areas of concern were the rise in off-campus low quality programs, weak research-intensive universities that are working towards awarding doctoral degrees in administration, competition for students is causing lowered program quality and admission criteria, and the fact that state and local school districts are adding to the problem by salary incentives for advanced degrees. Levine noted several major issues that affect school administration programs. First, he revealed that many people who had finished these programs agreed that the curriculum was irrelevant; they said that it did prepare them to deal with "on-the-job issues." Second, the issues of low admission and graduation standards were addressed. The study illustrated how many schools lower their standards to increase admission and create tuition "cash cows." Third, he discussed the issue of these schools having weak faculties.
Pierce, Jon L. and John W. Newstrom (2011) 6th edition. Leaders and the Leadership Process.
Green, R. L. (2013). Standards informing school leadership. In Practicing The Art Of Leadership (pp. 165-196). Boston, MA: Pearson.
"Developing a Philosophy of Leadership." . Leadership Paradigms Inc., n.d. Web. 12 Nov 2013. .
Kouzes, J., & Posner, B., (2007). The leadership challenge, (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
As a leader candidate, I can understand the challenges and multiplicity of complications that administrators must face each day. However, I will not accept any remote possibility that the students must be affected by some flaws of the school organization. We all as leaders, must be strategic with people, time, and money to guide our students towards an academic success.
Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved from http://clarkmussman.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/leadership-theory-and-practice.pdf
One regular factor in most of the effective schools research is an emphasis on strong, instructional leadership (Edmonds, 1979ab, 1982; Purkey & Smith, 1983; Weber, 1971; Brookover& Lezotte, 1979). Leadership theories, such as trait, behavior, contingency, and charismatic, provide a theoretical framework for viewing the total development of instructional leadership. Instructional leadership has many different definitions and models that intellectualize it starting from the early 1900’s. The current study synthesizes the many meanings and models of instructional leadership using theoretical and empirical contemplations. The instructional leadership construct is defined in terms of principal behaviors that lead a school to educate all students to higher student achievement.
Although there are many outstanding, albeit necessary qualities of a good leader, it is the leader’s beliefs in which greatness is given its first breath, fostered by action, and spread throughout the institution. A great leader believes in encouraging, not destroying; in setting the precedence instead of yielding to prominence ; in collaboration, not division; in giving, not taking; and in having high standards and volunteering to be the first of many to be held to them. A great leader does not take advantage of the people being lead, but instead, creates an advantage for the people by giving them the opportunities to lead. Only when people take ownership of an institution will passion be cultivated, action be taken, and greatness be achieved.
It is very common in this day and age to become discontent with where you are at in leadership. One of the reasons for this discontentment can be because influencing all of those around us is not an easy thing to do. If we are to not only stay content, but also excel in leadership we must keep in mind that ninety-nine percent of leadership does not come from the top of any given organization, but the middle. John C. Maxwell, author of The 360-Degree Leader, speaks to us about the principles that leaders can use to bring value and influence to any organization from any level within the organization, enabling them to do, what John C. Maxwell describes as leading up, leading across, and leading down.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary
What does leadership mean in the context of educational leadership? Many definitions of leadership in education co-exist, attesting to the complexity and multi-faceted phenomena of the concept (Elwell & Elikofer, 2013). Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood organizational and psychological areas of study. Despite volumes of research and numerous theories, no one theory of leadership emerged as the sole predictor of the success of educational leaders. The current body of knowledge about leadership consists of narrow definitions of leader effectiveness that are disconnected from their context (Latham, 2014). Educational leadership influences and affects every dimension of the educational process from the
Northouse, P. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
As mentioned before, leadership styles take an important role in running a school. Unfortunately, many principals have not yet defined their leadership style and struggle to administrate their school. They are responsible not only of teachers and students, but of every employee in the school. They have the power to control all the resources available to improve and meet academic goals. Despite their power, principals need to identify appropriate leadership styles to succeed as