Assignment 2: Roles in leadership
I. Introduction.
Leading is a task that needs a leader to be a light of the community he/she leads. It is showing the right way towards the end point. A leader always needs to devise plans and strategies to insure good results. In this task, it is very important to know the led people in general and individuals in particular. This will help him or her involve the community using good strategic mechanism. In matter of learning, the NCSL’s Strategy for Leadership Learning put it clear that “leaders need to have a deep, current and critical understanding of the learning process and what this means for enhancing learning and teaching in schools and ensuring that learning is personalized ” (p4). A leader must thus understand the load to be carried from a point A to a point B and how to carry this load. It is utmost important for any leader to know how to use the people he/she leads for a good success. Leaders are therefore to be in good terms and relationship with the community they lead. The NCSL has it that “leadership is about getting the best out of people” (Ibid p6). This applies for all leaders in all domains of leaderships.
In schools, the NCSL adds that “relationship underpin all interactions and good relationships create conditions that motivate pupils and staff and secure the support of parents and governors” (Ibid p6). Surely, a leader cannot get the best out of his/her people without good relationships with them. In order to build positive relationships, leaders must know themselves and get acquainted of the impact they have on the people they lead, to use NCSL’s advice (Ibid p6).
Having established positive relationships with the led people, any school leader aims at engendering student motivation all the time as this is an ongoing process that requires creativity and energy. Leaders need to be creative and energetic to quote Grossnickle (1989). It is this leader’s creativity and energy that adds up to their success as successful leadership captures hearts and minds of the led community (NCSL P8).
Apart from the above, any leader worthy of the name must spearhead changes in his /her community. This is very critical and crucial as it engages having a good vision of the future, a vision that is shared with and supported by the community as a way of fully involving people participate and contribute to their own development. The NCSL asserts that “being a change leader is critical to 21st century educational leadership and crucial to building system and school capacity. Successful leaders promote a shared vision of the future, underpinned by common purpose and values, which will secure the commitment of a wide range of stakeholders” (Ibid p8). Shortly, the role of leadership here is to be ‘a change leader’.
However, being a ‘change leader’ and having a shared vision only are not enough without a good, strong and efficient organizational system in which both staff and pupils feel confident and that helps smoothly run things. According to the NCSL, for leaders to realize the shared vision it is necessary to build effective and efficient organizational systems and process as successful organizational management complements leadership in that it ensures that things get done. It moreover makes staff and pupils feel confident that everything is running smoothly in their daily environment (Ibid p10). Otherwise, leaders need to establish collaboration within the community as a way to strengthen it. The NCSL held it that strengthening community through collaboration is crucial to capacity-building in schools. (Ibid p12). So-saying, another role in leadership is to ensure collaboration within schools as a way of bringing together all the stakeholders within the school community.
From the foregone introduction, a panorama of roles in leadership is brought forth, a picture of how to get the best out of the people foreground. The most important thing here is that leadership seems to be too demanding and compelling. It requires creativity, criticism, collaboration and strategies. Over and above all, most and foremost, leaders need to establish a good and strong system bringing all the stakeholders together in fully collaborative manner that will enable them “catch the hearts and minds” of the led people and hence successfully achieve their goals. The practical example from Baraa Secondary school below is showing the roles in leadership according to the different levels of leadership here.
II. Practical observation at Baraa Secondary School
II.1. School Administrative Structure
Baraa Secondary school administrative structure, like most of schools in the area is a mixture of teachers and pupils representatives or prefects. It has a headmaster, a second master, an academic master and a discipline master as senior office bearers under whom all administrative issues of the school fall. This is for one side. And for the other, the pupils’ representative committee is made up of the general prefect at its head and class prefects being members of this committee. Apart from the above, every class has a monitor keeping an eye on pupils in the class especially when teachers are not in the classroom. At a simple glance, we here realize that the school system encompasses both teachers and pupils and therefore demonstrates a collaboration and cooperation between the former and the latter.
II.2. Observation, Findings and Comments
The observation was carried out on 3 form 2 classes. All the 3 teachers wanted to be anonymously presented in their interview quotations. This interview was also extended to all the 3 prefects of these classes. The general prefect of the school was also associated. This procedure aimed at showing the extent at which the leadership is established at this school. And much more, the target was to demonstrate how efficient and effective the administrative system is.
To begin with, I first of all put it clear that my observation targeted specifically English class hours. It was otherwise limited most of the time to students’ group exercise time whereby class prefects, monitors and teachers collaborate. It was interesting to fin d that an English teacher could ask any teacher to help her or him supervise activities in her or his class when she or he was caught by other activities. This shows how teachers help and support each other in their daily activities. Besides that, teachers work together when analyzing pupils’ individual abilities and weaknesses in the spirit of devising strategies to identify what are these weaknesses and how to bridge the gaps.
In short, there was some sort of information sharing and exchange among teachers about their classes in general and individual pupils in particular. The results of supervised exercises are used as references during the teachers’ discussion. This matches the NCSL strategies which stipulate that “relationship underpin all interactions and good relationships create conditions that motivate pupils and staff (…) (Ibid p6). Teachers here aim at motivating weak pupils to work hard and those doing well to maintain their standards and even make a step forward.
As to what are teachers thoughts about their roles and responsibilities, all the three (3) teachers converged to what they think is their roles and responsibilities. That is to “instill knowledge and skills into their pupils and thus put educational success within their reach. It is a matter of shaping pupils so as to enable them fit in their society and develops it using the knowledge and skills acquired from school.” To the best of my understanding, this is clearly connected to the NCSL’s strategies according to which a leader is “a change-leader” (Ibid p8). Teachers are leading the change in providing the needed knowledge and skills to pupils to develop themselves and their societies. Teachers wanted themselves to be good models for their pupils every time.
Regarding leadership for adults and pupils, the school uses a system that highly involves pupils through their representatives on one side and teachers themselves, on the other. Class prefects and monitors represent teachers when the latter are not in classrooms. The former oversee all pupils whereby cases of noise making and other undisciplined cases are reported to teachers for further decision and management. This already asserts a firm and close cooperation between pupils’ leaders and teachers. In group work, teachers designate a group leader for every group in the context of having both staff and pupils feel confident that everything is running smoothly in their daily environment, to quote the NCSL strategies. In this way, that school’s organizational system “complements leadership in that it ensures that things get done” even when teachers are not there (Ibid p10). (Italics mine).
I indubitably find the system successful because teachers can easily oversee all pupils at school using their representatives (prefects and monitors) as they (teachers) cannot be everywhere and do everything at a same time. Prefects and monitors are therefore the teachers’ eyes. That is for one.
And for two, this system helps the school leadership get the best out f its people; these are pupils themselves, to use the words of the NCSL strategies. It otherwise focuses on the pupils’ future in training them for further leadership stage and responsibilities. The NCSL held it that strengthening community through collaboration is crucial to capacity-building in schools (Ibid p12). This kind of capacity building for pupils’ leaders should be strengthened in order to shape good leaders since their early age.
Embarking on pupils learning, all the form two class prefects, speaking on behalf of the whole school held it that the main pupils responsibilities are to follow the advices and guidance of the school leaders. This will help them achieve higher. “Working hard, observing the school regulations, attending class sessions, carefully listening to teachers when teaching, asking questions when need be, being advisable” were the main issues raised by these pupils as a part of their responsibilities in their learning. They added that pupils have the main task in their own learning as teachers are there for guidance.
Lastly, it was interesting enough to find that all the teachers were seeking a quiet environment during their subjects. They controlled their classes and were making sure all pupils follow them carefully. Moreover, their use of a participatory method was very important especially when testing the knowledge acquisition towards the end of the session. This applied during teaching sessions.