The paper is discussing about the educational leadership and history of superintendence. Leadership is a necessary thing for any organisation or institute. In the schooling system of United States, there are many works to do. These works should be managed in a proper way. Therefore, there is a need to superintendent those works (Avolio & Gardner, 2015). The history of the superintendence and the significance of the leadership have been discussed here. There are many theories and approaches to define the leadership. There is a gap taken place between the ancient and modern leadership. The leaders have to face certain challenges now days. A detailed study has been given in this paper regarding all relevant matters.
A change has been observed in the field of educational leadership for some years. The perspective of every research is to find out the objective but there is no initiative has been made regarding the perceptions of the professional skills and as a result, the scope of the veteran superintendants has remained unfinished. It is a well-known fact that there is a yawning gap between the ancient and modern leaders. According to recent study, it is important to do specialisation on the idealistic management to tackle the burden of works. These qualities are necessary regarding the leadership, as they have to comply with certain necessary and major responsibilities. An attempt has been made regarding the history and various perspective of the superintendence and leadership program.
The term superintendence can be termed as an educational leader as well as an administrator in the sector of the school district in the continents of United States. They hold an important position in the arena. The role of them is helpful to make a bridge between teacher and students (Barnett, Shoho, & Oleszewski, 2012). The minimum educational qualification for a superintendent is a Master’s Degree. The upper qualification can be a Doctoral degree or any degree of law and finance. In USA, it is required to hold certain state requirement certificate for the post of the superintendent.
In United States, the importance of appointing a person to manage the educational affairs were realised in the colonial era. A school committee was established that can appoint a superintendent and school committee was for the first time established in Boston in 1721. The importance to increase school superintendent arose to manage the increasing number of students and to tackle the school affairs (Barnett & McCormick, 2014). In Stuart v Kaalamazoo School (1874), Michigan Supreme Court gave order on behalf of appointing more superintendents for the schools.
School superintendent becomes a sole profession in the year 1911 and separate study courses were started regarding the same (Bass, 2013). Cubberley in his book expressed his view to term the chair of the superintendent as a chief executive for the schools in the year 1916. After the date, the importance of the school superintendents has increased time to time.
Certain abilities are required to achieve the goals specified in certain companies and educational institutions. Leadership is such ability (Brunner, 2016). The role of a leader is to combat the challenges and give direction to the right path to achieve the pre-decided goals. A proper guidance is necessary to understand the process of achieving goals and therefore, there is a demand for the appropriate leadership in the institutions. A leader is encouraging the other employees and preparing them to achieve the goal in a proper way for the interest of the particular institution.
In educational sphere, there is a necessity regarding the leadership. It is the duty of an educational leader to strive certain changes in the education so that some positive mentalities can be cropped up in the related policies and principles. In an educational institution, the teachers are acting as an employee. Therefore, here the job of a leader is to give them advice so that they can achieve the all-possible criteria in a proper manner (Callan & Levinson, 2011).
Hereinafter, it can be said the job of the educational leaders are important in nature and they need certain skills to enhance their knowledge and prestige of the posts. It should be duty to make certain improvements in the educational system and enact certain policies regarding the same (Covey, 2014).
In the educational system of United States, the leaders have to preparer the budgets and set up certain rules to retain the standard of the school and hire the teachers to achieve the goal. Therefore, it can be stated that the post of educational leadership is significant in nature. The educational leaders are engaging in the core process of an institution. They sometimes have involved in the policymaking standards of the institutions (DiPola & Stronge, 2013).
In United States, the need regarding the educational leaders is necessary from the pre-school to the university level. Therefore, it can be stated that the need of the educational leader in the institutions are vehement in nature and certain precautions are needed to appoint anyone as a leader. The educational leaders can be appointed as a director in the institution in the form of a athletic director or department chair (George, 2013).
Study regarding the educational leader is conducting during the graduate session. There is a necessity to appoint eligible leader to promote the standard of the institution. The minimum qualification for the post of the educational leader is Master’s degree or Ph.D. degree (Glass, Bjork, Brunner, 2013).
The position of leaders in the educational sectors is important in nature and the number of the directors is increasing day today. It gives an indication towards the positive side. However, there are certain challenges are present regarding the leadership that can be categorised as assessment gap, teaching gap and leadership gap.
In leadership, there is a necessity to communicate with the people. A communication becomes effective when both the written and oral skills are combined together. Technologies are also takes a broader part here. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the skills. However, the leadership program is now suffering from the assessment gap and the reason behind the same is the insufficiency regarding the basic literacy skills.
In ancient times, there was a thoughtful ingenuity observed in the teaching pattern. However, in modern times, there is a lack regarding the teaching implication among the leaders (Goetsch, 2016). It is important to have certain conventional wisdoms among the leaders and the leader needs to encourage the pupil and the teaching staff. However, the same principle is not being followed up now days and therefore, the students are facing serious problems.
In today’s vision, the leadership in the educational sectors are suffering from certain inadequacy regarding the skills of the leaders such as critical thinking, communication, toxic grading system etc. The outcome of these is affecting the education a lot and therefore, a leadership gap cropped up.
The main problem regarding the leadership challenges is gap between the theoretical and practical study of the leadership program. Unpleasant conversation is another challenge for the school level leaders (Grint, 2011).
The concept of leadership is an ancient idea and the character of the leaders is appreciated from the intellectual side and their divine inspiration. Therefore, the leadership behaviour is depending on certain humanistic perspectives within one organised group. The primary object of the leadership behaviour is to measure the initiation of structure of the leaders. Initiation of structure means activity of the leader in a group and organise the same.
In the managerial body of the school, Maslow gave certain suggestions regarding the leadership behaviour (Hersey & Blanchard, 2017). In the words of Barnett, in every ideal leader, stability is required. In the schools, there are certain pressures in respect of the studentship program, management, assessments etc. Therefore, a leader should have the power to support the staff and the employee.
It is to be taken care by the leader whether the staffs are following the rules or not. It is important to maintain the integrity of the post of leadership and therefore, a leader should be honest and trustworthy.
There are certain theories that are pointed out by some theories such as great man theory, trait theory, behavioural theory, contingency theory, transactional leadership theory, situational leadership theory and transformational leadership theory. Situational and Transformational leadership theories are the most recent theories that are applied in this case. Hersey and Blanchard coined the rule of situational leadership. The main objective of the theory is to adjust the behaviour situational basis and the leaders are facing the challenges in this respect. This theory is also known as the life cycle theory. The theory is divided into four parts- specific abilities for job, inappropriate ability, have appropriate abilities but refused by the job interviewer, and will to do a job (Hertting, 2013). In case of situational leadership, mind is a very important thing. As the theory is based on the situation, a leader of this theory must have to be consistent and up to date regarding the circumstantial changes and behaviour.
In an effective leadership, communication plays an important role and it is the utmost duty of the leaders to create a strong relationship with the others. Therefore, the leaders need to be trustworthy and have the ability to motivate others. This is the main essence of the transformational theory. In this theory, the leaders are transformed their followers by inspiring them. In this theory, there is no force regarding the applicability of the rules are present. The rules that are mentioned under the theory are free and flexible in nature (Kamler, 2014).
Like the theories, leadership has certain approaches. There are four types of approaches present to denote the leadership. As per the quality approach, a person is born as a leader, he is not made by any circumstances. According to the functional approach, the leadership abilities are developed within a person and he becomes a good and ideal leader in this process and with the perfect time. The responsibilities are making a leader to manage all the things for the benefit of the society and for the interest of an organisation. Apart from these approaches, authentic leadership approach is present to denote the cultural requirements of a leader and it is important to build an interest within the leader so that they can engage themselves completely in the work. Evolving approach is one of the approach in this case and it emphasise the initiative to establish an integrity in the heart of the leader (Kelley, Thornton, & Daugherty, 2015). According to the researcher, the components of the theory help to build a serious leadership outcome on the lifetime of the leaders.
There are certain soft skills that a leader should have to build in him. It is important to be tracked regarding the all outcomes of the right and honourable way and to take care of the people. There is a old saying: the people will not remember the personality of a person, they only remember how the person make them feel”. Therefore, every leader should have to do work as per their interest. Commitment is one of the necessary skills for a leader. Every leader should do all such things that they are intended to do (Kouzes & Posner, 2012). The idea of leadership based on the fact that the person is different than the others due to their abilities. Therefore, it can be stated that the leader should have to develop their talent to do something different than the others. They should have the ability to encourage others so that the process of success can be facilitated. A leader should have certain skills to value the people more. A leader should have to work for the people and they should not, in any time and manner, trump the people over the process (Bass, 2013).
There are certain gaps present in the case of leadership now days. It is seen that the novice leaders are much un-experienced than the senior leaders. There is a yawning gap present in between the theoretical and practical courses of the leadership program (Brunner, 2016). The research on the gap of leadership skills is important to know the loopholes of the leadership program and it will be possible to have such knowledge to rebuild by concentrating on the leadership skills. The style of the leadership should have to based on the organisational effectiveness and therefore, it can be stated that it is important to understand the leadership skill in the graduate level and in the training programs so that the leaders can be able to fill the gap that is present in the leadership program.
The main objective of the educational leadership is to maintain a ethical behaviour amongst the student and teaching staffs. Most of the efforts are based on the ethical approaches and issues. In the words of Maxcy, the term leadership is a term of the period of history. There are many leaders in the ancient times who lead the world towards progressiveness. In the recent times, there are certain ethical principles are present such as:
It is important to show the inner courage for the development of the moral issue of the students and to tackle the things for the betterment of the future. There must be a will to take up the challenges. It is also important to make policies that could be effective for the same.
Public interest will be placed higher than the self-interest for the leaders. However, the leaders are failed to do the same in recent times. Therefore, certain ethical problems cropped up regarding the beneficiary of the society.
Self-disciplines are also necessary to build a strong mark in the grounds of the leadership. There must be a balance regarding the problems are necessary (Covey, 2014).
In the leadership program, scientific merits are holding an important position. Research indicates the importance of Scientific Merit in a research study, and there is an establishment of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). The main objective of the IRB is to make sure that risk to applicants that are minimized by implementing methods that match up with the specific research designs. Scientific Merit measures the level science in a study. A study is identified as having Scientific Merit if it is discussing a topic that is of significance in that field, and there must be use of the Scientific philosophies and identify what is to be learned from the research.
The review literature in the field of Educational leadership reveals that there are many leadership styles. Each leadership style has specific characteristics. The literature also identified several leadership theories. Each theory identifies the type of leader skills that leader possess. The literature then states that transformational leaders work best in an educational setting. Theorist in the field of leadership was also identified and discussed. Not only do the literature discuss educational leaders, but Leaders in other fields were discussed also. There are indications in the literature as to what skills superintendents, principals and even teachers need to be successful.
The implications of this study are: (1) Transformational leaders are those leaders that inspire others to be leaders. (2) Leaders have to use a variety of leadership skills in order to be successful. (3) Experienced superintendents do not have all the answers. (4) Teachers are good leaders. (5) Superintendents and principals can be good of bad leaders. (6) Leaders must be able to adapt their leadership behaviours to best fit in their organizations.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that the research on the topic of educational leadership mainly concentrated on various themes of the leadership program and management. Although there is numerous researches about educational leadership, many fail to discuss Veteran superintendents’ perceptions of professional skills needed by novice superintendents. During instances when superintendents are often challenged with complex and demanding leadership issues, involving the need for effective solutions, a superintendent must have the knowledge and leaderships skills to be able to apply the appropriate solutions successfully (Covey, 2014). The history of the leadership program, the significance of the leadership, the future of the leadership, all are stated in the report to understand the various aspect of the educational leadership and an attempt has beem made to go to the root of the problems and ethical dilemmas of te leadership. Authentic leader’s actions can be established by using integrity, and talents, healthy relationships, self-worth, standards with stability. The review literature in the field of Educational leadership reveals that there are many leadership styles. Each leadership style has specific characteristics. The literature also identified several leadership theories. Finally, the implications of this study are: (1) Transformational leaders are those leaders that inspire others to be leaders. (2) Leaders have to use a variety of leadership skills in order to be successful. (3) Experienced superintendents do not have all the answers. (4) Teachers are good leaders. (5) Superintendents and principals can be good of bad leaders. (6) Leaders must be able to adapt their leadership behaviours that are to best fit in their organizations.
Reference:
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