STEWARDSHIP

Stewardship and Leadership



Stewardship and Leadership

Stewardship

The concept of stewardship is similar to that of public governance. However, stewardship particularly emphasizes on the role of state in taking responsibility for the well-being of the school and its employees and students. It influences the overall functioning of all systems i.e. it embeds welfare in the whole society (Williams, 2008).

Stewardship has four key tasks for improving the functioning of the school system stewardship, which are as follows:

1.Developing a vision and direction for the school.

2.Collection and usage of information and intelligence for improvement of school.

3.Exerting influence through regulation of the system, and standardize everything.

4.Care and responsible management of the school.

With stewardship, the efforts of a school authority are made transparent regarding their influences on the system outcomes. In the dynamic educational environment, many schools seek better ways to understand and improve various aspects of the school system. Stewardship and its outcomes are easily measurable through practical assessments, which analyze different approaches and accomplishment of different goals (Williams, 2008).

Thus, stewardship can be defined as a body of ethics represents the task of cooperative planning and management of resources for school districts and the communities. The purpose of stewardship is to ensure active involvement of the whole society in collaboration with the school district for the development and maintenance of its pupils and, therefore, the future of the nation.

Through stewardship, the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) recognize and put into effect their responsibilities towards the community. However, in order for stewardship to be successful these PTAs need to comprise of faculty, school staff, students, and their families. Stewardship involves the proactive addressing of issues affecting a school district or the community and solving them in a timely manner. Under stewardship, the members of a group volunteer to invest their time and ability to benefit the school district and community (Sergiovanni, 2007).

Key Attributes of Stewardship

Listed below are the characteristics of stewardship that are of critical importance for the development of school leaders:

Listening

This is one attribute all leader must possess because it helps them communication and decision-making. School stewards and leaders have to develop a deep commitment to listening keenly to others in order to pinpoint the issues that might be setting off the goal achievement and for their resolution. Moreover, strong listening skills help in the clarification of individuals' motivations, which can then be mould towards the goal achievement. Stewards in the leadership role put aside their personal perspectives and deal with problems from an impartial perspective. Listening, in combination with the ability to reflect, spurs the personal growth of the steward leader (Spears, 2010).

Empathy

Part of the role of the leader in stewardship is to understand and connect with others people, in order to recognize their distinctive qualities and help them utilize those accordingly. Empathy helps the leader to appreciate the individuality of people, and as a result, assign them duties that they can easily carry out and expect behaviors or performance that they can deliver (Spears, 2010). All successful steward leaders are skilled empathetic ...