Assignment Task
Introduction
This essay examines my personal experience in India as a Primary teacher in Indian School. Being a teacher inside the school, I always considered myself as an effective teacher in teaching my students as well as prepare them future responsible citizens of the country. In this essay I will discuss the following points 1) effective leadership and management in schools. 2) My personal experience in India as an effective Leader. 3) Comparison between western and Eastern school culture. 4) Expectations of management from school Leaders 5) Efficiency and progression in school results. 6) flexibility to work on multifaceted roles. In this following exposition, I will explore how the effective leadership plays a key role in enhancing the learning environment in both the classroom and school. As a school teacher, Here, I will disclose teacher leadership in action and take an account on the functions of teachers who lead.( Harris, A. and Muijs, D. (2005;2004) We will see the first difference between western and eastern school culture as I have worked in India as a primary teacher as well as in UK. (Feldhoff, T. et al. (2022) Additionally, I will discuss and highlight the distinction between effective leadership in India and as well as UK schools. Moreover, I will discuss expectations of management from school middle leaders. Nevertheless, Principals are responsible for the development of supportive school culture including the proactive school mindset. (Brown M & Rutherford D (1995).
Main Body
It is really hard to define what is effective leadership is? There are almost as many definitions of Leadership as there are persons who attempted to define it. ( Bass, 1990, p11) According to Yukl (2013, p2), “Researchers usually define leadership according to their individual perspectives and the aspects of the phenomenon of most interest to them”. Washbush(2005, p1084) assets that we are “mostly left with endless discussions” and “remain intent on calling almost everything leadership” and we are now “too confused and distracted to notice !” Effective Leadership in a school is the most contested issue. Every stakeholder has a different opinion about school effective leader. It depends on personal experience. It keeps on changing and depends on various educational settings. (MacBeath, J. (2002). Moreover, there is not one style of educational Leadership.” Leadership is all about influencing others with a view to accomplishing a common goal and facilitating circumstances and environment that will help to reach the target”.
The five major functions of leadership are categorized as follows.
Set a goal and concentrate on it.
Organise a high performance, Team.
Keep the group inspired
Maintain a good relationship with your subordinates.
Keep workers happy to reduce attrition
Leadership is defined in numerous ways based on different subjects. These definitions of leadership do not apply to all leaders in all circumstances. (Sethraman and Suresh, (2014) As a result, a lot of research was done to determine what qualities makes good leaders. Since, long time traits have been given importance for an effective Leadership whereas, study has shown that personality traits are also important.
Leadership theories
A few leadership theories will be discussed here.
Great man theory: Great man theory depict that Leaders are not created, they are born. It states, that depending on the situation, the innate qualities will show themselves. Since, men were only in the position of leadership in past. Henceforth, this theory was warmly accepted by our historians and named as great man theory. Over the years, various research were conducted and this idea became obsolete. (Maj Earl Russel, 2011)
Trait theory Method: theory was one of the first theories of leadership. This theory focussed on fundamental characteristics such as physical and personal qualities along with the competencies a leader should have. It is predicted that fundamental characteristics are the reason for the behaviour of leaders. Likewise to the great man theory this strategy states that leaders have trait that they are born with that last for a long period, similar like great man idea.
Contingency Theory: The focus of contingency theory is on environment elements that could decide the most effective leadership style in a given situation. Some of the contributing variables are scenario, followers and leadership styles. (Kendra Cherry, n.d).
Situational Theory: According to situation theory, Leaders should select the optimal leadership based on the circumstances and the target audience. (Kendra Cherry, n.d).
Behaviour Theory: Contrary to the great man theory, behaviour theory assets that leaders are ‘made not born’. It claims that developing one’s leadership skills is possible. (Kendra Cherry, n.d).
Participative Theory: The ability of a leader to make decision collectively Or the shared impact of the followers is explained by participatory theory. The team members motivation would increase under this style.
Transformational Leadership: Transformational leaders can inspire and motivate followers to put the interest of the group ahead of their own by offering vision, meaning, challenges and stimulation. (Ekstrand, J. et al. (2018;2017;) Leaders use exceptional forms of influence which moves followers to achieve organisational goals. (Burns,1978; Bass,1998).
Transactional Leadership (Burns 1978) focuses on exchange between leader and follower. The foundation of transactional leadership is rewarding and reprimanding followers based on their successes or failures. Schools Leaders those who practice transactional leadership encourage interaction between managers and employees.
Charismatic Leadership: Charismatic Leaders can arouse and inspire their people to perform through their deep emotional bonds and affinity with their followers. (Bass, 1985b) Charisma is regarded as attributional phenomenon and type of influence. However, charismatic leadership is uncommon and fleeting and it can be dangerous. (House 1976)
Distributed Leadership: Distributed Leadership is primarily concerned with the practice of leadership rather than the leaders themselves or their responsibilities, routine and structure. In the end, how leadership is distributed is more crucial than whether it is distributed. (Gronn2000)
Effective Leadership: Different stakeholders have different opinions on the effectiveness of leadership dependent on their experience. Schools continuous change responding to a range of factors, henceforth it cannot be static. (MacBeath, J. (2002). Effectiveness ins assessed based on the effects of influence on a single person, team, group or organization.
