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Essay on Effective leadership in education
The contribution of effective leadership by school officials, especially principals, to the quality of education is widely recognized. The advantages of applying the systems approach to education management are obvious. It allows for alternative structure, decision making, and leadership. It provides an allowance for infinite variables and combination of the basic elements of management which are short- and long-range planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.
Education has several conflicting purposes. In utilizing the systems approach, agreement on one or all of these must be accomplished to produce a valid and useful analysis. Education reacts to multiple pressures internally and externally in redefining its purposes, and change in definition of purposes must be recognized in analyzing a higher education organization.
A major component of administration in education is leadership. From the viewpoint of systems theory, leadership might be considered as a subsystem of systems administration. It could also be considered as a concept which becomes a part of the conceptual framework of administration theory. Leadership styles are definitely an important part of administrative theory.
Traditionally, the dimensions of leadership theory have been two in number, authoritarian and democratic. A third has been called laissezfaire. Authoritarian leadership is that which is associated with the bureaucratic organizational structure. Authority comes downward from the leader. He initiates decisions. He is the superordinate and does not consult with the subordinates. The exact opposite dimension is the laissez-faire, or free-rein, type. This type is one in which the individual member is independent of the group and the leader. He makes his own decisions. He acts outside of the organizational structure.
The most favored dimension for some administrators is democratic leadership. This type is seen in a participative type of organization. Authority stems from the group. Group members participate in the decision-making process. Ralph Stogdill summarizes leadership types as follows.................
