Revisiting my leadership role

 
Since the last review more than a year ago (8 Apr 2011) on my leadership role, my guiding sense about leadership is that it is not about the person or a group of people. Rather, leadership is a process – a process of influencing work towards a common goal. Having read the article on “First, Let’s Fire All the Managers”, especially on the 4 step approach on self-management confirmed my belief.

I now see a leader as a person who influences an individual or a group to do work towards such a common goal – in our case, the teaching and learning of our students. Of course, in order to reach one goal will require accomplishing many other sub-goals. Consequently, I view leadership as a continuous process by which the achievement of one goal will lead to taking on a new goal.  Hence, the leader need to be the motivator to keep the process going – empowering others at the initial stage, making them a part of the dynamic process so as to continue on at the later stage with or without the leader (A legacy!). Such understanding of a leader and leadership now sets my foundation in working towards the common goal.

The article on “First, Let’s Fire All the Managers” speaks of mangers, in fact to do without manager. In the story of Morning Star, a highly successful tomato processor demonstrated how the organization combines managerial discipline and market centric flexibility – without bosses, title or promotion. To me, it is important to distinguish between manager and a leader – in particular reference to instructional IP leader. A manager’s role often is not focused on improving students learning but, in simple terms, on documenting compliance with standards and procedures. In other words, compared to leadership, management is a process that will keep the school running smoothly, in order and deals with problems that arise from within the system – it helps maintain the status quo of the school. I have seen some of my fellow middle managers being effective in this role. This management function is necessary but I do not think that it will act as a change agent.

I believe that a successful leader will need both management as well as leadership function. This I have seen in my school leader. To totally disregard the as important function of an effective management practice will be a mistake while to focus on management totally will result in no change happening in school. On the other hand, to have excessive change – with leaders continually shifting directions – success will not happen. I seek to maintain a balance between the two functions and I started by making the distinction between manager and leader.  I now need to work on my responsibilities in both management as well as leadership function, knowing that ignoring any of these would be harmful to the teaching and learning process.  

Reference:

http://whispersandshouts.typepad.com/r1112b-pdf-eng.pdf