Essay about Philosophy of Leadership

Submitted By ecetnor
Words: 924
Pages: 4

Educational Leadership Philosophy

by

Elizabeth A. Cetnor

EDA 6061 – Principles of Educational Leadership

Instructor: Dr. Gary Tucker

Leadership is the ability to be the influential source in motivating others to do their best in any given situation. My educational leadership philosophy is simple. As an educational leader, I strongly believe that it is important to build relationships with parents, staff, and students. I believe it is the educational leader’s responsibility to make sure all stakeholders feel vested in their school and learning environment. Everyone needs to work as a team to achieve the expectations set forth for the public education system. In order to accomplish this, I would have to establish an open and honest school climate. All stakeholders would have to be aware of goals and visions that I had set and also have a certain amount of buy in order to make the results favorable. My vision for teachers is for them to have professional accountability, professional growth, and a strong desire for student success. Cheng (1993) noted “that stronger school culture correlates with more motivated teachers”. He took that idea one step further and stated that in an environment with "strong organizational ideology shared participation, charismatic leadership, and intimacy, teacher experienced higher job satisfaction and increased productivity”. I think motivated teachers maximize the academic potential of all students. I envision that students will be well equipped under my guidance to be the best they can be and academically achieve to their fullest capacity. I would like to see a learning environment that is full of pride and all children are given an opportunity to perform to the best of their abilities. I would like to be viewed as an advocate for both staff and students. "Good leaders must first become good servants." 
(Robert Greenleaf) I envision the leadership style most fitted to help me accomplish my goals is Servant Leadership. I believe in order to build the trust I desire, I need to serve first and make sure others needs are met first. The common characteristics of this type of leadership include listening, awareness, persuasion, and foresight. By being receptive to others, acknowledging them and validating them, I assume I can build the type of culture where people are motivated and willing to work as a team to achieve goals. This type of leadership also relies heavily on having a commitment to promote personal and professional growth. I conceive this would also contribute to a culture that promotes professional growth and accountability. One size doesn’t fit all, so to successfully lead I feel it is important to examine each situation and apply the appropriate leadership strategies. As an educational leader, you need to examine the task and level of experience each individual has for each situation. It is important to nurture, guide, and let go when necessary. If you don’t match the correct style to the correct level of experience you will end up with a very unhappy staff, which ultimately results in lower academic achievement of the students. In todays high stakes testing environment you need to make sure you are consistently checking data on teachers and students. Data need to be collected, analyzed, and evaluated to access the school’s needs and its’ instructional programs. You must implement and monitor change based off of the data you receive. A teacher’s instructional effectiveness is the direct link to student achievement and needs to be an administrator’s top priority. I feel that I would need to nurture teachers based off of their evaluations and to also look for trends in the school that would show areas needed for professional development. I would begin