EDUCATION

Organizational Leadership in Education

Patricia Williams

Northcentral University

Abstract

In this study, we try to explore the concept of “Organizational Leadership in Education” in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on “Organizational Leadership in Education” and its relation with “learning about the leadership”. The research also analyzes many aspects of “Teaching Evolution” and tries to gauge its effect on “learning”. Finally, the research describes various factors and types of leadership which are responsible for practices in leadership, in an educational field, and tries to describe the overall effect of specific leadership style in “learning and education” (Rainy, 2003).

Organizational Leadership in Education

Introduction

The modern organizational environment is a subject of constant change cycles; the thought of having only one successful leadership style is obsolete.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 (Spears, 2004). 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 (Schermerhorn. 2008). 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. This essentially is what is central to a leader's greatness (Spears, 2004). Greenleaf believed the key purpose of educational organizations ought to be to generate an optimistic impact on their staff and the surrounding society (Greenleaf, 2007).

Spears (1998, 2004) perhaps best summarized the main characteristics of servant leadership. The important characteristics for the servant leadership includes paying attention, compassion, consciousness, urging, conceptualization, prudence, promise to the development of people, and community building (Greenleaf, 2007). 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. ...