Leadership Actions That Might Address

¶ … leadership actions that might address the issue described in Part a and also refer to Part B below (These should be referenced and informed by relevant literature and research).

Part a stresses the importance of student achievement and emphasizes the relationship between student outcomes and the quality of the teaching they receive. Part a offers a form of self-appraisal as a means for improving the teaching quality and keeping teachers consistently geared towards a high level of educational excellence. As Part a describes, teachers have to reflect on their current level of success and effectiveness in a frank and honest manner, comparing those attributes to a rubric; it is via this reflection and comparison that teachers are able to pinpoint and assert professional learning goals which they can work hard at achieving in the coming year. Thus, there's a strong element of on-going reflection which keeps the teaching performance flexible and dynamic as opposed to static.

However, as Part a points out, schools do change in a collective fashion; however, this collective fashion needs to be orchestrated via leadership. In order for the proposal described in Part a to work in any capacity, strong leadership is essential. In fact, one could argue that this might be an instance where transformational leadership is relevant. "Applied transformation leadership encompasses the act of empowering individuals to fulfill their contractual obligations, meet the needs of the organization, and go beyond the 'call of duty' for the betterment of the institution (Santamaria & Naverez, 2010). These leaders inspire, motivate and appeal to followers through an array of skills and behaviors" (Santamaria, 2010).

Thus, according to these ideas, transformational leadership within the school setting needs to help inspire and transform these teachers before, during and after their self-appraisal. Or as Earl and Katz assert, such leaders need to be able to help develop the conditions for teachers to participate in such inquiry both individually and collaboratively, that is constant in their own work (2010). Together, these ideas indicate that the transformational leadership needs to be specific and it needs to empower these teachers to engage in the act of self-appraisal and goal setting in the loftiest and motivating way. In fact, as other scholars have indicated, the leadership in place to help enable these changes can be more of a distributed type or variety, so that it's not so reliant on the actions of a single individual (Gronn, 2008). In order for real and consistent change to take place, the leadership might need to be on various layers and levels so that the teachers are constantly being enabled for improvement and are constantly enabling one another.

On the other hand, there is a valid argument as to the value of individual leadership in certain aspects of improving student outcomes. Scholars have written about the adeptness in principal-parent dialogues as an important component of student achievement and of educational leadership (Robinson & Le Fevre, 2010). Furthermore, one could argue that the leadership will generally be more effective and cohesive if there is at least a single presence (be it a person or governing body) which acts as the leadership entity, given all the stakeholders involved. This single entity can also more consistently value the differences of both the students and teachers in a meaningful, useful way. "Good leaders seek to bring together sets of different realities to form a holistic identity for the organization" (Walker & Quong, 1998) it is through the acknowledging and valuing of differences that this leadership can empower teachers to commit fully to the task of self-appraisal, realizing that they all have different strengths and weaknesses and that's valid and to even be expected in any school setting. it's using these differences as a springboard to motivate continuous improvement on behalf of the teachers that presents the most real and significant challenge.

Finally, it needs to be acknowledged that even the most effective form of leadership is a dynamic animal and is not something that is static. Leadership suffers when it is not supported; even the best leaders still need professional development and encouragement so that they can make decisions with confidence and aplomb (Thornton, 2010). Moreover, leadership is a skill that needs a commitment to continuing education and a forum where leaders can support one another, sharing their insights and mistakes and learning from one another.

Explain how you would know whether leadership effectiveness was improved by application of these ideas (what evidence would you need?).