Leadership styles and school leadership

There are several definitions and categories of leadership styles. There is a simple dichotomy of autocratic and democratic leadership styles, where autocratic leadership refers to coerciveness, authoritarianism, leader-based decision making and to emphasize goals. Democratic leadership refers to consultation, consensus, sharing power and authority, and facilitating interactions. (Bass 1990.)

Moreover, Bass proposed that leadership can range from highly involved active leadership to passive laissez-faire leadership.

Daniel Goleman (2000) categorizes six leadership types: commanding, visionary, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching. Commanding leadership works best in a situation, where there is a crisis and a kick start is needed for a turnaround. Visionary leadership works best, when changes require a new vision or when a clear direction is needed. Affiliate leadership is needed to heal rifts in a team or to motivate people during stressful circumstances. Democratic leadership refers to building buy-in or consensus or getting input from valuable employees. Pacesetting leadership refers to getting quick results from highly motivated and competent team. Coaching refers to helping an employee to improve performance or to develop long-term strengths.

Gayle Avery (2004) connects a particular leadership style with a particular leadership paradigm. Within classical paradigm, which has low priority of followers’ ideas, emotions, wishes, and needs, function for example Great men theories, which assume that the capacity for leadership is inherent, that great leaders are born, not made, Traits theories, which assume that people inherit certain qualities or traits make them better suited to leadership. Behavioral theories, which are based on the belief that great leaders are made, not born, the leader-member exchange(LMX) approach, which is based on the observation that followers form relationships of varying  intensity and quality with their leader, socio-cognitive theories, where leadership is in the eye of beholder and leader actions and behaviors, not hierarchical positions, underlie whether people attribute leadership to them, and Fiedler’s Contingency Model, which proposes that leadership effectiveness is a function of the match between a leader’s style and the leadership situation.

According to Avery (2004) in the transactional leadership paradigm, where followers’ significance has somewhat increased compared to the classical leadership paradigm, as the  takes account of workers’ skills, needs, and motives in the process of influencing them.  In general transactional leadership focus on the exchanges that occur between leaders and their followers. Under transactional leadership paradigm useful leadership models are Great men theory, Traits theory, behavioristic theories, LMX theories, socio-cognitive theories, situational leadership theory, which proposes that leaders choose the best course of action based upon situational conditions or circumstances, Fiedler’s Contingency Model, and House’s Path-goal theory, which is another contingency approach in which the key role of a leader is to clear way for others to accomplish goals.

Avery links the visionary paradigm, with strong emotional aspects and a view of desired future, but where the leader is dependable on followers, who will accept and help to accomplish the vision, to Great men theories, Traits theories, behavioristic theories, the LMX theory, socio-cognitive theories, and the House’s path-goal theory. Fourth leadership paradigm in Avery’s classification is the organic leadership paradigm. Under this paradigm only socio-cognitive approach of leadership is a successful leadership model.

Transformational theory of leadership was introduced by James V. Downton in 1973. It’s emergence as important approach to leadership was due to political sociologist James. M. Burns. (Northouse 2004.) Burns distinguished between two types of leadership: transactional and transformational leadership, which focus on the connections formed between leaders and followers. In transformational approach leadership is the process by which a person engages with others and is able to “create a connection” that results in increased motivation and morality in both followers and leaders. Transformational leaders motivate and inspire people by helping group members see the importance and higher good of the task. These leaders are focused on the performance of group members, but also on each person to fulfilling his or her potential. Leaders of this style often have high ethical and moral standards.

In addition Amanchukwu et al. (2015) distinguish six different leadership styles. 1. First there is the Autocratic leadership style, which is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where leaders have complete power over staff. Staff and team members have little opportunity to make suggestions, even if these are in the best interest of the team or organization. 2. Second leadership style is bureaucratic style. Bureaucratic leaders follow rules rigorously, and ensure that their staff also follow procedures precisely. This is an appropriate leadership style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances, or at dangerous heights) or where large sums of money are involved. 3. Third leadership theory describes what to expect from both leaders and followers. This charismatic leadership is a leadership style that is identifiable but may be perceived with less tangibility than other leadership styles. 4. Democratic leaders make the final decisions, but include team members in the decision-making process. They encourage creativity, and team members are often highly engaged in projects and decisions. 5.  Laissez-faire leaders abdicate responsibilities and avoid making decisions, they may give teams complete freedom to do their work and set their own deadlines. Laissez-faire leaders usually allow their subordinate the power to make decisions about their work.

Nowadays many scholars have shifted from traditional trait theories or other personality-based theories, which often identify particular personality or behavioral characteristics that are shared by leaders, to a situation theory, which dictates that the situation in which leadership is exercised is determined by the leadership skills and characteristics of the leader.

In the context of school organization there is a managerial view where transactional leadership and transactional leadership stand at opposite ends of a continuum and then there is the educational view where instructional leadership and pedagogical leadership stand at opposite ends of a continuum. Instructional leadership is often seen as the sole domain of school principals and it is firmly connected with New Public Management idea of a manager who can solve all problems. Likewise it might seem tempting as a staff-member to continue to hold the top responsible for whether or not change happens. And that is apt to disempower the staff even more leading to an “I just work here” attitude. 

According to MacNeill et al. (2006) instructional leadership focus on teacher instruction and is driven by mandated curriculum, is classroom-centered and managerial. Whereas pedagogical leadership focus on student learning, emphasizes distributed leadership and instead of being managerial emphasizes building a professional learning community. The pedagogic principal leader is driven by the moral and social notions of developing the whole child, while acknowledging the socio-political contexts of learning.

Managerial aspect (transactional-transformational continuum) of school leadership and educational aspect of school leadership (instructional-pedagogical continuum) could be comprised as a fourfold table;

REFERENCES

Amanchukwu, R.,  Stanley, G., & Ololube, N (2015). A Review of Leadership Theories, Principles and Styles and Their Relevance to Educational Management. Scientific & Academic Publishing, 5(1), 6-14

 Avery, G. (2004). Understanding Leadership. Los Angeles/London/New Delhi: SAGE Publications

Bass, B. (1990) Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications. 3^rd edn. New York, NY: Free Press.

Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership That Gets Results. Harward Business Review, March – April 2000.

MacNeill, H, Cavanagh, R.F. & Silcox, S. (2005).  Pedagogic Leadership: Refocusing on Lear­ning and Teaching. International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning 9 (2).

Northouse, P. (2004) Leadership. Theory And practice. 3^rd edn. Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi: SAGE Publication