Word Count: 542
Prior to studying ‘leadership’ as an aspiring teacher librarian I was unaware of the vast styles of leadership mentioned throughout the modules. These include Transformational, Transactional, Servant, Situational, Instructional, Authentic, New genre, Strategic, Distributed and Sustainable leadership and the numerous forms and factors that characterise the behaviour of these leaders (Marznao, Waters & McNulty, 2005 p. 13-18, Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2009, p. 423, Hargreves, 2007, p. 224). I was also unaware of the prominent theorists that exist and became particularly interested in Warren Bennis, Michael Fullan and Stephen Covey (Marznao et al., 2005, p. 19-22) and the notion of self-concept presented in Avolio et al.,(2009, p. 425). I believe teacher librarians as leaders can administer these ideals effectively into an educational setting as they reflect my understanding of transformational leadership as being best practice, as it assumes to produce results beyond expectation and convert followers to leaders (Cheng, 2002, p. 66).
My understanding of leadership has grown considerably from my original forum post (Edwards, 2014) of “self-sacrifice, communication skills, flexibility, effective communicator taking in differing opinions, morals and ethics to take the best course of action”, to include other aspects that potentially impact my aspiring role as a teacher librarian. The aspects that have impacted my understanding of leadership most significantly include vision, change facilitator, knowledge of staff, modelled behaviour and personal attributes. Adopting these aspects into my understanding of leadership has broadened my knowledge and highlighted the key roles and challenges teacher librarians have within a school. Implementing a shared vision, ability to facilitate and adapt to change, knowing staff’s strengths and weaknesses, modelling expectations and having a level of emotional intelligence, as a teacher librarian, I believe are skills required to motivate others and essentially achieve educational goals.
Another significant impact on my newfound knowledge of leadership includes the hierarchical nature of leadership in an educational context. My previous thoughts indicated a hierarchical structure with the top tier being of most importance and the bottom tier of least importance, reinforced by Avolio et al., (2009, p.430) and the concept map I produced for this assignment. Placed at the top of the mind map is what I believed to be of most importance ‘Mission Statement and Vision’ and placed at the bottom what I believed to be of least importance ‘Personal Attributes and Modelled Behaviour’. However, I now feel that both aspects are of equal importance as they are vital in linking and making connections between each of the other aspects presented on the leadership mind map.
My upstanding from further readings and module discussions placed leadership in an educational context as central to educational outcomes. This is displayed on the ‘Leadership Capability Framework’ (ACEL. n.d) where ‘Leading Learners’ is centrally placed surrounded by three key sections and eleven sub sections, and a forum comment ‘Once you have their trust, you can begin to lead them from the middle’ (Combes, 2014). As an aspiring teacher librarian, leadership that is central allows for shared vision, opportunity to collaborate with staff from all levels of leadership, the opportunity to know staff personally and professionally, effectively facilitate change, demonstrate exemplary behaviour and build personal attributes that will help develop leadership skills and empower followers.
Leadership, like the role of a teacher librarian is multifaceted, complex, ever changing, and numerous in aspects. This means teacher librarians as leaders need to continually learn, be passionate, transparent and share knowledge to ultimately meet teacher learning and student outcomes and help students to become effective 21st century leaners and contribute positively to society.
Reference:
ACEL. n.d. Leadership capability framework. Sydney: Australian Council for Educational. Retrieved from https://secure.acel.org.au/teacher_survey/docs/ACEL%20Leadership%20Capability%20Framework.pdf
Avolio, B., Walumbwa, F., & Weber, T. J. (2009). Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions. DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/37/
Cheng, Y.C. (2002). Leadership and strategy in education. In Bush, T. & Bell, L. (eds.). Educational management: Principles and practice (pp.51-69). London: Paul Chapman.
Combes, B. (2014, March 5). Good Leadership [Online forum comment]. Retrieved from http://interact.csu.edu.au/portal/site/ETL504_201430_W_D/page/0e386e66-d989-444a-80b2-2e5e4e1f1390
Edwards, S. (2014, March 10) Post 1[Online forum comment]. Retrieved from http://interact.csu.edu.au/portal/site/ETL504_201430_W_D/page/0e386e66-d989-444a-80b2-2e5e4e1f1390
Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2003). Sustaining Leadership. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(9), 693-700.
Marzano, R. J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. A. (2005). Some theories and theorists on leadership. School leadership that works: from research to results (pp. 13-27). Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/lib/csuau/docDetail.action?docID=10089219
No comments:
Post a Comment