Public Relations Role of School Leaders

School Leaders Should Use Social Media to Engage the Community
Abstract
This paper compares and contrasts seven articles related to the theme of the public relations role of school leaders. The articles in either look at the ways in which leaders can effectively engage with the public or they look at the importance of having a public relations role and what tools can facilitate the development of that role. The paper first discusses the similarities of the articles, then it discusses the elements that make them different from one another. Thus, each article is discussed at least twice over the course of the paper, once in regards to how it aligns with what the other articles say and once in regards to how it distinguishes itself from the others.
Keywords: public relations school leaders, social media public relations, schools social media
Introduction
School leaders must be able to “negotiate with public relations,” according to Wei (2017). The idea of negotiating with public relations is that one does not shy away from the public light but acts as the face of the school and interacts with stakeholders who may impact or be impacted by what goes on in the school. DiMartino (2018) likewise points out that school leaders have a shared responsibility of creating school-community partnerships through public relations work. This paper will compare and contrast the elements of the seven articles regarding the public relations role of school leaders.
Similarities
Of the articles analyzed, the main similarity among them all is that none views public relations as foreign to the job of school leaders in today’s digital world. On the contrary, each article shows that school leaders must act as the public relations firm of their own school. Scott and Halkias (2016) show that servant leadership in particular can be of particular utility for school leaders looking to develop their PR role. Servant leadership characteristics were identified as “authenticity, courage, accountability, standing back, forgiveness, stewardship, empowerment, and humility” (p. 10). Handling a crisis, serving others, communicating well and enabling people in the community and in the school to reach their potential is the focus of the study by Scotta and Halkias (2016) but it could equally be said to be the focus of the other articles as well, as they all essentially communicate the same idea: PR matters for school leaders and administrators seeking to bridge education and community life.
Wei (2017) suggests that professional standards for school leaders requires that administrators have the kind of servant leadership mentality described by Scott and Halkias (2016). This helps because, as DiMartino (2018) indicates, it allows for school leaders to identify the needs of the community and adapt the school policies and programs accordingly. The idea here is that schools are not just there to serve students’ needs but also to serve the needs of the wider community. This is the same point that Wei (2017) makes, too.
Hampton (2016) shows that one way to communicate with the public is to use social media. As King (2015) notes, social media’s utility is that it is functional, communicative, universal, and collective. It allows for a two-way flow of communication between school leaders and the community and fosters a spirit of exchange. It facilitates the gathering of feedback so that schools can make adjustments based on the information they receive from stakeholders in the public in response to information that they, the school leaders, put out. Larkin (2013) also makes the case that social media has an important place in the facilitation of public relations. The point is also made by Barnes and Jacobsen (2013), who suggest that using social media is simply good marketing. The idea that PR is essentially the same as marketing is common among the articles.
Differences
Where the articles differ is in their focus. The article by Barnes and Jacobsen (2013) for instance focuses on the way that major organizations today are turning towards social media as a means of enhancing their marketing and controlling the narratives they release to the public. Barnes and Jacobsen (2013) look at the powerful tool that social media has become for any organization seeking to interact with the public, message the public, promote itself to the public, or engage the public. Social media data can be better than any survey, according to their study.
The study by Larkin (2013) is different in that it applies the concept of using social media to schools directly. Instead of just discussing how social media is a PR tool that any organization can use, Larkin (2013) explains that it is a great tool for schools and school leaders to use. The problem that many school leaders run into in terms of public relations is that they do not know how to get out in front of the public effectively. They use outdated modes or fail to connect with the community. But with social media that problem is solved. In the 21st century of the digital age, using social media is and should be an obvious choice for school leaders.
The article by King (2015) focuses on how social media can be a tool for leaders with an emphasis on communicating through libraries and inviting the public to engage with libraries. Libraries are public places and service the community with access to books, magazines, Internet, files, maps and more. Libraries know how to engage with PR and connect with communities. The promotion of social media from the standpoint of library science and professionals whose focus is on service of the community is a good sign that school leaders could take this advice and make social media a part of their own engagement plan.
The study by DiMartino (2018) differs in that it looks at how school leaders build an ecosystem based on partnerships between the school and the community. The idea here is that school leaders succeed in their PR role to the extent that they establish partnerships with other agencies, organizations, leaders, and businesses in the community. An isolated school is an organization that has no public face, no public relations, no connection to the community, and no significance or value for stakeholders. To show that a school has value, it has to engage in PR and the school leaders have to be willing to partner with other enterprising leaders in the community to help foster an ecosystem in which people can thrive and benefit from the good tools that the school can offer. This study thus looks directly at why it matters that school leaders get engaged in public relations, whereas the other studies look at helpful tools or styles of leadership that school leaders can engage.
Such is the case with the study by Scott and Halkias (2016) who focus on the fact that school leaders can use servant leadership to create good relationships with community members. Here the idea is that PR should be founded on the characteristics of servant leadership, characteristics which foster trust, communication, assistance, and growth. Leadership styles and techniques are deemed particularly important in this article and the emphasis on leadership and how school administrators make themselves available to the public is the main distinction of this study.
What is unique about the study by Hampton (2016) is that it indicates that school leaders and administrators who are aware of and have used social media as a way to connect with the public have found it to be quite useful and advantageous. They see it as a valuable tool for connecting, communicating, messaging, creating a narrative, maintaining two-way communication flow, collecting feedback, and understanding the community. The study is unique because it looks directly at what school leaders and administrators have experienced with social media. Their own personal reactions and experiences with the tool are gathered here in this study to help give a sense of what real world school leaders think about it as a way to enhance or support their own PR efforts.
Finally, there is the study by Wei (2017), which is unique from the others because it focuses its attention on school leadership in China and shows that the promotion of professional standards among school leaders in China can facilitate the sense of having a public relations role. The study shows that for school leaders to understand that they have an important job to play in terms of PR, they have to have a sense of the vital standards that direct them. In other words, they have to know what is expected of them and what they should be striving to reach.
Conclusion
Each of these articles is unique in its own way but similar in other ways. The ways in which they are the same include the fact that each one focuses in some manner on the importance of leaders of organizations or schools connecting with the public or reaching out to communities in order to connect and engage with them for the purposes of relationship building and knowledge gathering. The ways in which they are different are many, however. Some look at the tools that these leaders can use, such as servant leadership or social media. Others look at the reasons these tools are helpful and what the experiences of school leaders have been with them. Still others look at the importance of having standards for leaders to follow so that they can meet the expectations the community has of them and rise up to the challenges of managing their PR role. Each takes its own approach to the concept of how leaders can engage the public with leadership characteristics or digital technology.
References
Barnes, N. G., & Jacobsen, S. (2013). Adoption of social media by fast-growing companies: Innovation among the Inc. 500. Journal of Marketing Development & Competitiveness, 7(1), 11-17.
DiMartino, L. (2018). The Role of School Leaders in Creating a Learning Ecosystem Through School-Community Partnerships. Educational Studies Dissertations. 141.
Hampton, S. C. (2016). Social media as a tool to effectively communicate with stakeholders: School administrators and superintendents' perceptions. Dissertations. 316. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/316
King, D. L. (2015). Why use social media? Library Technology Reports, 51(1), 6-9
Larkin, P. (2013). Tweeting the good news. Educational Leadership, 70(7), 70-72.
Scott, J. A., & Halkias, D. (2016). Consensus Processes Fostering Relational Trust Among Stakeholder Leaders in a Middle School: A Multi-Case Study. International Leadership Journal, 8(3), 1-100.
Wei, W. (2017). Education policy borrowing: professional standards for school leaders in China. Chinese Education & Society, 50(3), 181-202.