Educational Leadership Philosophy

Abstract
The long-range impact of educational leadership is to empower others in the school community to nurture their talents and abilities and make them leaders in their own capacities. To realize this, the leader needs to adopt the transformational leadership framework, which requires them to be an intellectual stimulator, inspirational motivator, mentor, and coach. The process of leadership incorporates several leadership strategies including direction-setting, developing people, mentoring and coaching, and developing leadership programs. There is a need for continuous learning to enhancing the leader’s handling of people from diverse cultures, religion, and nationalities. The intermediate aim of the leader is to help followers realize their maximum potential.
Educational Leadership Philosophy
Strong educational leadership is a crucial determinant of effective student learning. On the basis of strong leadership, a struggling school can transform and a great one empowered to thrive even more. According to a report by the Wallace Foundation, educational leadership is the second most significant school-related factor, after classroom instruction, contributing to what students learn (Leithwood et al, 2004). The overall purpose of educational leadership is to promote effective student learning and motivate stakeholders to work together towards a common vision. The immediate outcome of strong educational leadership is a school community bound by a shared understanding of the organization’s goals, a common vision, motivated staff, and a positive organizational culture that empowers all people to thrive. In the Genesis creation story, God, upon creating man, gave him complete dominion over the rest of creation, making him a leader rather than a follower (Genesis 1: 26, The New International Version). Similarly, the long-range impact of educational leadership is to empower others in the school community to nurture their talents and abilities and make them leaders in their own capacities.
Philosophy of Educational Leadership
My philosophy of educational leadership is based on the transformational model of leadership. The purpose of the transformational leader is to satisfy the needs of followers to improve their performance and provide the resources and support that they would need to realize their highest potential (Martin et al., 2006). Martin et al. (2006) summarize/group the purpose of the transformational leader into four. First, the leader provides the foundation for idealized leadership, which involves providing a sense of mission and vision for the organization, winning the trust of followers, and instilling pride so that more people race to be part of the organization. They are a source of inspirational motivation to their followers, collaborating with them to develop reasonable expectations and working together to devise strategies for personal and professional development as a means to keeping them focused towards the shared vision. Thirdly, a transformational leader is the source of intellectual stimulation. They provide intelligence and careful problem-solving that ensures teamwork and sees to it that that all stakeholders work together collaboratively towards the shared vision. Finally, a transformational leader serves to make every member of the team feel valued. They offer individualized consideration to team members and treat them as individuals, empowering each one to achieve their best according to their abilities, talents, and capacity. While an instructional leader emphasizes the core business of teaching, meeting targets and realizing achievements; the transformational leader focuses on winning the commitment of teachers and other stakeholders as a means to realizing the desirable end of high student performance (Cambridge Assessment International Education, 2017).
Leadership Practice
To realize the four leadership purposes identified in the preceding section, a transformational leader needs to employ several fundamental strategies. This is the process of leadership. The first crucial strategy is the setting of directions, which helps followers develop a shared understanding about the organization, as well as its activities, vision, and goals (Leithwood et al., 2004). I believe that a transformational leader needs to involve their followers in the development of organizational goals and shared vision as a way of making them feel valued and like a part of the organization. Such involvement would make them personally compelled to contribute to the realization of the shared goals as opposed to when goals are made elsewhere and imposed on them. According to Leithwood et al. (2014), a crucial part of direction-setting is effective communication. Education leaders need to promote an open-door policy to promote vertical communication that will make it easier for followers to open up to them on their personal development needs and expectations. When the leader understands the needs of their followers, they are better-placed to offer individualized attention to facilitate each follower’s ability to work towards the shared goals and vision.
Another crucial element of transformational education leadership is the development of people. The overall purpose of a transformational leader is to nurture followers’ talents and enhance their skills in a bid to make them leaders in their respective capacities. Through maintaining open communication with followers, a transformational leader could obtain insights into the training needs and untapped potential of followers, which they then use to positively manage their followers’ talents and offer training as a way of helping them realize their highest potential. In their roles as intellectual stimulator, the leader ought to offer mentoring and coaching to their followers to inspire motivation from within that will help them realize their potential and develop the strength to work towards the same.
I strongly believe that whereas some people are natural leaders, born with the ability to effectively command masses; a good leader can also be made. For this reason, there is a need for educational leaders to develop leadership teams geared at nurturing leadership potential at the level of both students and teachers so as to help them yield maximum impact in their individual capacities. The essence of leadership, as Ulf Spears (2012) points out, is not to “create followers, but to make all people leaders” (p. 28).
Relationships
A transformational educational leader has four crucial roles. They are an inspirational motivator, intellectual stimulator, a coach, as well as a mentor (Martin & Cashel, 2006). Although they are often overlooked, followers are equally important as without them, there would be no leaders. In the conventional setting, the follower’s role is to listen, reflect, and comply.
In a transformational leadership framework, however, the follower has a more pronounced role to provide valuable support to the leader through questioning and healthy engagement in organizational decision-making. To effectively bring out this role in their followers, educational leaders need to provide avenues for followers to give their views and ideas when there are crucial decisions to be made in the organization. Transformational leaders treat their followers as active participants in the decision-making process, rather than as passive recipients of information. The effective engagement of followers would help to make them feel valued and as an important part of the organization, thus compelling them to put more effort towards its success.
Diversity
Globalization has turned the world into a one large global village. Consequently, the American population today is composed of people from diverse cultures, nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. As such, leaders ought to be open to the idea of enhancing their diversity-awareness skills to ensure they maintain a comfortable environment for all. A promising strategy for educational leaders is to remain open to continuous learning as a way of enhancing their understanding of the beliefs and attitudes associated with different cultures, nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. Further educational leaders need to treat all people fairly and to prevent stereotyping of people who hold different beliefs from theirs. Transformational leaders serve as role models for their followers. As such, the leader’s attitude towards people who hold different beliefs systems is likely to influence their followers’ attitudes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the long-term impact of educational leadership is to empower one’s followers to nurture their talents and abilities so as to make them leaders in their own capacities. The essence of leadership is not to maintain followers, but to create leaders from one’s followers. To realize this, leaders need to adopt the transformational leadership framework, which requires the leader to be an inspirational motivator, intellectual stimulator, a mentor, as well as a coach whose primary goal is not to achieve academic targets, but to inspire and empower followers to work towards shared organizational goals and vision.
References
Cambridge Assessment International Education (2017). Educational Leadership. Cambridge Assessment International Education. Retrieved from https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/271192-educational-leadership.pdf
Leithwood, K., Louis, K., Anderson, L., & Wahlstrom, K. (2004). Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning. The Wallace Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/How-Leadership-Influences-Student-Learning.pdf
Martin, B., Cashel, C., Wagstaff, M., & Breunig, M. (2006). Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
Spears, U. (2012). Coaching Leadership Families: Using the Leadership Family Model to Coach, Mentor, and Multiply Health Families. New York, NY: Xlibris Corporation.