An%20Educational%20Leadership%20Framework%20Based%20on%20Traditional%20and%20Contemporary%20Leadership%20Theories

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An Educational Leadership Framework Based on
Traditional and Contemporary Leadership Theories

• TNG Cheong Sing
• Monash University

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Traditional leadership theories

• Trait approach
• Personalities, motives, values skills of
  natural leaders, but none of these traits was
  superior (Stogdill 1948)
• Behavioural approach
• Task-relationship dichotomy for leadership
  behaviour such as consideration initiating
  structure (Stogdill Coons 1957), concern for
  people production (Blake Mouton 1964),
  employee job centric behaviours (Bowers
  Seashore 1966)
• Contingency approach
• Contextual factors influencing leadership
  processes, such as characteristics of
  environment, subordinates tasks (House 1971),
  task structure, leader-member relations
  leaders position power to evaluate subordinates
  performance (Fiedler 1964), amt of relevant
  information possessed, importance of decision,
  subordinates acceptability of decision (Vroom
  Yetton 1973), subordinate maturity (Hersey
  Blanchard 1977)

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Contemporary educational leadership theories

• Transformational leadership
• Shared decision-making, teacher empowerment,
  understanding encouraging change, team work,
  see complete picture, continuous school
  improvement, foster school communitys sense of
  ownership (Leithwood 1992)
• Strategic leadership
• Relationships between external environment
  organizations mission as well as implementation
  (Maghroori Rolland 1997)

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Other contemporary educational leadership theories

• Educative leadership
• Cultural proficiency (Lindsey, Robins Terrell
  2003)
• Organizational leadership
• Enhancement of capability to accomplish effective
  work collectively (Heifetz 1994)
• Leadership from school principals, teachers,
  administrators parents have ve effects on
  school performance (Pounder, Ogawa Adams 1995,
  p. 567)

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Generic organizational leadership functions

• Align tasks with objectives strategies
• Build commitment, optimism, trust cooperation
• Develop empower subordinates
• Encourage facilitate collective learning
• Interpret complex events
• Organize coordinate activities
• Promote social justice morality
• Secure resources support
• Strengthen collective identity (Yukl 2006)

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Teachers as Leaders framework

1. Prepare students for better future
2. Achieve authenticity in teaching, learning and
   assessment practices
3. Facilitate communities of learning
4. Confront barriers in cultures structures of
   schools
5. Translate ideas into sustainable actions
6. Nurture success culture (Crowther et al. 2002)

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Themes for literature on teacher leadership

1. Individual teacher leader roles
2. Teacher leaders on-the-job learning
3. Conceptualization of teacher leadership being
   central to building professional communities
   renewing school cultures (Lieberman Miller 2004)

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Derivation of personal leadership framework

• Shared leadership counters possibly Western
  cultural bias attributing organizational
  performance to individual heroic leadership (Yukl
  2006)
• Diversity leading standardization parallels
  replacement of universal personal leadership
  theories with contingency organizational
  leadership theories , superiority of shared over
  heroic leadership

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Derivation of personal leadership framework (cont)

• Flawed processes more responsible than individual
  failures for not satisfying expectation when
  nurturing success culture in schools (Crowther et
  al. 2002)
• Without unrealistic expectation for individual to
  take responsibility for organizational failure,
  shared leadership with subordinate empowerment is
  more effective than heroic leadership (Bradford
  Cohen 1984)
• Conduct leadership research in specific
  organizational context (Dachler 1984 Drath 2001
  Gronn 2002)

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Personal leadership framework for university
academics
University academic leadership Teaching Research Administration
Convey convictions for better world Preparation of students for better job prospects Industry-relevant research outcomes feeding into teaching Maintenance of industrial linkages to understand their skill knowledge requirements
Achieve authenticity Coverage of industry-relevant knowledge Conducting of educational research to gain deeper understanding of teaching learning processes Support from Education Office in conducting peer teaching reviews, student transitions unit evaluations
Facilitate communities of learning Dissemination of good teaching practices at education seminars Dissemination of new ideas at conferences seminars Engagement of industries with internship
Confront barriers Discussion with fellow academics on teaching practices Engagement of departmental professors for advice Engagement of school manager for administrative support
Translate ideas into action Adoption of various teaching approaches Intra/inter-departmental inter-university collaboration Quality committee implementing ideas from academics to improve schools operation
Nurture success culture Award for teaching excellence Award for research excellence celebrating success in winning research grants publication of top-tier journal articles Award for administration excellence
Source derived from Crowther et al. (2002, pp.
4-5)