Providing guidance to followers can be a tasking responsibility since a leader has to create a friendly working relationship with the people being led as well as assert authority. To provide the most appropriate leadership, a leader has to combine various leadership styles (Buckley, 2017). A leadership style is a characteristic behavior exhibited by a leader while directing, guiding, motivating and managing people. Providing great leadership inspires change, innovation, and a motivation for individuals to provide exemplary performance in their work.
Hierarchical leadership
Providing leadership to a large urban school would require the selection of a leadership style that can offer the best motivation while maintaining high levels of discipline given that the school has high rates of dropouts. One of the leadership styles that would be most appropriate in the new urban school would be hierarchical leadership. According to Buckley (2017) in hierarchical leadership, the power belongs to the position and not the individual with roles being well defined. Since the school has had a rigid administration and organization, providing a clear definition of roles will enable the principal to reform the school and reduce the dropout rates.
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Transformational leadership
Another possible leadership style that the principal can adopt is the transformational leadership. A transformational leadership approach is used when a leader aims at bringing change to society or individuals. Leaders who employ transformative leadership aim at creating positive and valuable change to the followers (Cohrs, Rowold, & Engelen, 2017). Since the urban school seems to be faced by numerous challenges chief among them discipline, transformational leadership will work to make the students develop a sense of self and identity providing a platform for students to own the school to optimize performance.
The transformational leadership has numerous outcomes that would assist the new principle make a lasting impact on the school. First, transformational leadership is an interactive process that gradually transforms the followers and the leader yielding positive outcomes (Cohrs, Rowold, & Engelen, 2017). Given the school’s previous history, having an interaction between the principal and the students will act to boost student productivity since a sense of identity will be created. Creating an identity to the student followers will make them concentrate more with studies consequently reducing the high levels of school dropouts and enhance the number of students graduating.
Studies have shown strong evidence that the duration of a relationship through interaction in transformational leadership works to boost terminal value on followers (Zahra, Kiani, & Aqeel, 2015). The principal through adopting transformational leadership will be able to influence the students’ cognitive framework and thus enhance positive outcomes.
Since transformational leadership is based on idealized influence, the principal will be able to use the style to change students. The idealized influence component of transformational leadership argues that a leader will behave in a way to inspire loyalty and confidence from the followers through upholding high ethical and moral standards. Using the idealized influence will enable the principal to influence change in the students and other teachers subsequently changing the entire system.
Students require motivation which is an integral part of leadership. By employing transformational leadership, the new school principal will be able to guide the students into building a zealous vision for the time ahead. Providing motivation boosts confidence and enthusiasm among followers making them determined to achieve the set goals and vision (Coller-Peter, 2016). Since the principal studied in one of the most prestigious schools, her educational background can act as a strong motivating factor to students. Additionally, having produced exemplary performance at her previous workstations, the principal can ride on her achievements to steer the school forward by motivating them.
Distinguishing management and leadership roles
There exists a significant difference between managing and leadership roles in any institution. The principal will be able to differentiate her roles as a manager and as a leader. As a leader, the principal will have a duty to create a vision for the institution which will be complemented by her managerial responsibility of creating goals. Goals when setting and followed they form the path through which the leader’s vision is achieved (Coller-Peter, 2016). As a manager, the principal will be able to measure the goals set and thus control the school to achieve and exceed the set goals.
As a leader, the principal will be charged with a duty to bring change into the institution. According to management scholars, leaders embrace change while keeping in mind that even if the set goals have been achieved, there always exists a better way to work out things. Leaders accept and understand that changing a system brings with it numerous challenges and therefore has to find a way of managing any turbulent waves. While managing, it is necessary to remember that she has to find what works for the school. Managers refine systems, processes, and structures to find out the best systems to uphold that can work.
In the leadership arena, the principal will have to focus on making a long-term impact on the school system and structures. Leaders usually aim at having long-term distant goals remaining motivated and focused without regular rewards (Zahra, Kiani, & Aqeel, 2015). In contrast, the managers aim at achieving short-term goals with much motivation by regular rewarding. The principal has to find a place to play both managerial and leadership roles successfully and strike a balance between being a leader and a manager. Without integrating management and leadership roles, the principal may not realize her desired goals and objectives.
Managerial actions
Managerial actions refer to the various steps that a manager can take to ensure the success of the institution he is managing. One important managerial action the principal can take is changing the school values so that she gets things done. As a prudent manager, it will prove useful to make several adjustments to get the school in order (Zahra, Kiani, & Aqeel, 2015). Changing values is not always positive since it may send out a message that the students can do anything to keep up with producing the best results.
The principal can use different standards to measure performance. Since situations in the school are uniquely different, the principal may employ varying standards to achieve her desired results. Providing feedback about the performance and the goals achieved is another integral action that the principal is supposed to make. Giving feedback makes the students and members of staff feel they are part of the team and thus feel motivated to achieve more.
It is also the managerial responsibility of the principal to hold every student and staff members accountable for their actions. The students may not appear to resent corrections by the principal, but they will be very keen to see whether all students are held responsible for their actions. Having disparity in how the principal will treat students may result in resistance to change by a large section of the students and thus failing in her goal of bringing change.
Lastly, it is expected that being the manager in the school the principal will show utmost commitment to the values of the school. It is integral for the principal to treat values as more important than the results since when properly instituted, the values will gradually lead to achieving the desired results.
Expected results
Transformational leadership style is largely viewed as being highly effective in producing results (Zahra, Kiani, & Aqeel, 2015). It is crucial to have some expectations of the possible outcomes from bringing institutional change. Top of the expectations list would be targeting to have a decline in the number of dropouts. The school has been indicated to have a rising dropout rate and therefore reducing dropout rates would act as an integral key performance indicator.
Student grades would form another key indicator of whether the school is achieving its desired goals and objectives. Given that the district director of instruction has expressed fears about the quality of education in the school, it would be effective to analyze student results continuously to measure performance. Additionally, the responsiveness of the staff in the principal’s new school will further determine outcomes.
References
Buckley, M. R. (2017). Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management . Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited.
Cohrs, C., Rowold, J., & Engelen, A. (2017). A communication based approach on transformational leadership: Two empirical studies deepening the understanding of the relationship between leaders' communicator styles, transformational leadership behavior and leadership development . Dortmund: Universitätsbibliothek Dortmund.
Coller-Peter, D. S. (2016). Coaching Leadership Teams: Getting organisational culture aligned . Randburg: KR Publishing.
Zahra, S., Kiani, S., & Aqeel, M. (2015). Leadership Styles and Decision Making . Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing.
