Qualities of a Good Educational

Qualities of a Good Educational Leader

While some qualities of a good leader are consistent across groups, one of the interesting things about leadership is that different people may look for different attributes in a leader. This paper will examine the attitudes of 3 teachers, 3 students, and 3 parents about what they believe make a good educational leader. While there might be overlap between the different groups, there will probably also be differences, as teachers and parents frequently have conflicting ideas about what constitutes a quality education. Therefore, speaking with each group should provide some insight into what qualities each group finds critical for good leadership.

Educational leaders, such as team leaders, principals, and administrators lead teachers. In their professional capacity, they are in charge of setting the tone for the professionals who work underneath them. Therefore, one would anticipate that teachers' responses about what makes a good educational leader would be similar to what people think makes for a good boss in other circumstances. This was the case. Of the three teachers interviewed, all three of them mentioned that a good educational leader needs to have effective communication skills. Moreover, they all went a step further and clarified that the leader needs to have effective written communication skills, because poor written communication skills lead to a lack of confidence in the leader's own educational background. Another thing that all three teachers said was that educational leaders need to be willing to back up teachers and stand behind their decisions, rather than automatically succumbing to parental pressure when there is a dispute between the parent and the teacher. Two of the teachers suggested that the leaders need to be able to deal effectively with children. All three of them believed that the leaders should have spent at least some time teaching in a classroom environment, so that education is more than theory to them. Finally, they believed that educational leaders should be willing to listen to teachers and get feedback about which approaches were successful and unsuccessful in the classroom environment.

Students

Students had an interesting perspective on what leadership qualities were necessary in an educational leader. The students who were questioned were all in high school, but the first thing that the interview revealed was that their concept of educational leader was very narrow in comparison to the adults' concepts. The students spoke almost exclusively in terms of principles and vice principals, but did not address leaders at any other level. This made it clear that they did not really process those other educational leaders as leaders at all. Therefore, while none of the students mentioned it as a characteristic; I think that visibility is an important educational leader characteristic for students. They apparently need to see someone as actively involved in the leadership process in order to consider him or her a leader.

One of the characteristics that the students did mention was fairness. Each of them described scenarios in which they felt as if their educational leaders had not been fair. They perceived that some students were given preferential treatment. The reasons that they cited for this preferential treatment varied, though parental involvement at school and student involvement in athletics seems to be two common reasons that they believed principals might treat some students better than others. They felt like this differential treatment was not beneficial, not only to the students who did not receive the preferential treatment, but also to the students who did. Another characteristic that the students found important was that the leaders be nice to them; they found it difficult to relate to leaders who were short or rude with them. In fact, they said that principals who seemed to dislike students made them not want to attend school.

Parents

All three parents believed that it was critical for an educational leader to have a student-first attitude. However, there seemed to be some disagreement about what it meant to have a student-first attitude. One of the parents seemed to think that this should mean that educational leaders would put children's preferences first, and discourage the teachers from challenging them and assigning a lot of homework. However, two of the parents believed that a student-first attitude meant that the educational leaders should be focused on ensuring that the children received the best education possible, with the goal of surpassing any state standards for minimum education requirements.