Effective Leadership Styles for Change – Term Paper

What leadership style is most effective

In the education environment, leadership style plays a vital role in realizing the goals of the learning community. A leadership style is among the unique ways through which a superior manages subordinates. Leadership styles are usually linked with a leader’s personality while the requirements of the position shape it. The primary leadership styles that most managers utilize comprise of paternalistic or benevolent, developmental, and coercive or critical. These leadership styles create distinct forms of working environments within organizations based on how they fit with the requirements of an organization. In a study carried out of the stories of lesser and great leaders in establishing a categorization of moral (transformational and transactional) and amoral (power wielders), right leaders are perceived as real leaders while amoral leaders are not (John ; Chattopadhyay, 2015).

Concerning transactional leaders, they follow the culture of an organization as it prevails whereas transformational leaders institute certain changes. A transformational leader also changes the social wool and warp of reality. In general, a transformational leader is more superior compared to a transactional leader. Furthermore, research has revealed that the leadership that significant historical individuals have employed has mostly been transformational rather than transactional. Great leadership is effective when leaders engage emotions. Leaders are considered artists in that they are supposed to tolerate chaos while lacking structure. They conceal certain information to hinder premature disclosure regarding vital issues. Thus, the leadership style exercised in educational settings would have a substantial impact on the performance of learning institutions and in implementing effective strategies that can support ideal educational reforms (John ; Chattopadhyay, 2015). Therefore, good leaders, particularly transformational leaders would be perfect for educational settings. Educators or school leaders employing transformational leadership would have a significant impact on the effective implementation of reforms that would meet the educational needs of today’s learning institutions in the face of advancements in technology and growing influence of globalization in the learning environment.

Leadership styles in education

With the establishment of PLCs, scholars, and teachers have studied the creation, system, function, and positive influences affiliated with the areas. They have raised their view that a classroom serves as a fixed place in which educators need to handle exemplary work that requires close attention, although their work revolves around other contexts. The interactions that exist between teacher peers are vital in perfecting the learning and teaching outcomes. In this sense, PLCs have emerged as essential tools for meeting the new knowledge needs of teachers as well as other requirements. These assist them to adapt as well as boost their visual field, which is essential for the entire organization and teachers. As such, PLCs have an active role in fostering mutual learning as well as fulfilling the immediate needs of teachers. Teachers have worked in isolation in the past, as it is the case with contractors in an education institution. As such the need for reforms in schools created a requirement for shifting to a modern approach that emphasizes on collaboration, accountability, and teacher efficiency hence boost leadership efforts within the learning community (Sai & Siraj, 2015). As such, several models exist to improve the leadership capability within the teaching community.

To begin with, Senge’s Model has gained notable popularity as it emphasizes on two distinct business world areas and the education setting. Concerning the education field, the framework offers several structures and useful materials leaders should adopt to allow them to establish effective school learning institutions. The distinct disciplines comprise of systems thinking, personal mastery, shared vision, mental models, and team learning. Each discipline consists of principles that guide individuals to learn, practice, master, as well as test in daily lives to realize success in the workplace (Sai ; Siraj, 2015). Thus, the model is ideal when it comes to boosting leadership capacity within the learning community.

Leadership in higher education

Secondly, The DuFour’s Model is essential regarding improving leadership ability in the learning community. It perceives an organization as the basis for professional learning communities that allow teachers to develop their cooperative work. They can focus on improving their capacity to deal with the multifaceted work they handle while assisting learners to narrow the learning gap to realize learning goals. According to this framework, PLC needs paying significant attention to learning rather than teaching as well as cooperative working to ensure that individuals understand their achievements (Sai & Siraj, 2015). In this sense, it is apparent that the DuFour’s Model also facilitates in meeting the leadership needs of the learning community.

Thirdly, Hord’s Model also contributes towards leadership goals in the learning community. It describes professional learning community by targeting five dimensions or traits. These include shared and supportive leadership, shared vision, and values, collective creativity, shared personal practices, and supportive conditions that contribute toward sustaining a learning community. For Hord, the first traits include shared beliefs, values, and vision (Sai & Siraj, 2015). In this sense, educational leaders would manage to improve PLCs by setting universal goals, shared mind, and similar central value to sustain the learning process.

In the event of PLC, students should have the capacity to learn the primary belief. Teachers can improve the fundamental benefits through sharing their visions to allow them to develop the learning of their students. In the event of professional learning communities, educators have the role of building their value mechanism by ensuring that they work together to allow them to realize individual goals. Also, school visions play a vital role in connecting the tasks of a school as a vivid element with the main principles and directions of a school, such as guidance activities, management, decision-making, and professional improvement. In this sense, the methods of teaching should change in a way that they comprise of professional practice and thoughts that boost shared visions (Sai & Siraj, 2015). These would also contribute toward improving the leadership traits among the learning community.

Leading and Managing Staff Development in Education

Staff development is an essential area to lay significant emphasis on in today’s organizations. Continuing professional development (CPD) is variable in nature in learning institutions. In this sense, it is essential to understand the differences that exist between professional education and career development. Professional development entails delivering a precise form of information to educators to influence their practice while professional learning refers to internal processes in which people establish professional knowledge by interacting with information in such a way that they challenge prior assumptions while developing new meanings (NCSL, 2015). In this vein, professional learning needs educators to be engaged in their learning seriously while professional development is perceived as a form of participation.

In the case of learners, they should ensure they lay considerable emphasis on professional education. The benefits they would realize from professional learning do not serve as professional learning bi-product by rather its fundamental purpose. In ensuring that effective professional learning approaches, it is essential to embark on shifts in thinking. For the educators, therefore, they need to place their learners at the center of an individual process, they should target professional learning on professional skills and knowledge as opposed to fundamental processes and activities (NCSL, 2015). Professional learning takes place when educators understand the principles that underpin the skills and knowledge the students have attained to ensure they can manage to adapt them to distinct settings and contexts.

Moreover, the teachers need to ensure they develop professional learning as a systematic inquiry process on the part of the teacher. Here, the educators should focus on setting their individual goals as well as work with others to allow them to apply the learning they have attained while at the same time monitoring the influence of the approach they adopt. Lastly, teachers should refrain from improving professional learning on their own. The individuals responsible for learning any professional learning aspect should be actively involved in challenging their thinking to refocus on the professional learning approaches that matter (NCSL, 2015). When professionals follow these procedures, they contribute to the establishment of highly efficient learning institutions.