Education

Organizational Leadership in Education

Organizational Leadership in Education

Introduction

The modern organizational environment is a subject of constant change cycles; the thought that there has to be only be one successful leadership style is obsolete. Active education environment means that the educational leader must be much more practical than ever before. Since educational organizations are organic workplaces operating in an environment of flux and change, leadership styles also need to be adaptive to changing circumstance and new opportunities. Each organization has objectives and goals, and the various methods by which these objectives achieved (or not achieved) are often a direct result of leadership styles and attributes of the people in charge. Many, if not most of the distinguished leadership theories applied to public and business organizations can be applied as well to educational organizations.Discussion

Leadership traits among educational leaders entrusted to lead and manage organizations also vary greatly, and the methods and techniques they employ in guiding their organizations to achieve tangible outcomes often related to their personal leadership styles. The purpose of this paper is to focus on three of those concepts: servant leadership, transformation leadership, and transactional leadership.

Servant Leadership

The concept of servant leadership is one that has attracted substantial interest among many leaders over the past few decades. According to Robert K. Greenleaf, a renowned management consultant, “the servant-leader is servant first…. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve”. This essentially is what is central to a leader's greatness (Spears, 2004). Greenleaf believed the key purpose of educational organizations should be to create a positive impact on their employees and surrounding community.

Spears (1998, 2004) perhaps best summarized the main characteristics of servant leadership. The characteristics, he mentioned are important for servant leader, includes listening, empathy, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Russell and Stone (2002), in addition to the attributes above, noted the importance of the following traits in servant leadership based on trends from other research. They include communication, competence, visibility, influence, encouragement, teaching, and delegation. Joseph and Winston (2005) explored the relationship between follower perceptions of servant leadership, leader trust, and organizational trust. Barbuto and Wheeler's (2006) produced five more servant leadership factors: persuasive mapping, altruistic calling, wisdom, organizational stewardship and emotional healing. These factors had significant relations to transformational leadership, extra effort satisfaction, leader-member exchange and organizational effectiveness.

The concept of servant leadership seems reasonably relevant to the many educational organizations that have ...