Assessment: Essay
Learning outcomes 1, 2, and 3:
Critically discuss how a leader’s style can affect the quality of teaching and learning in educational institutions.
Guidance on answering assessment questions:
- Assess different leadership theories and styles and their implications for teaching and learning
- Discuss challenges educational leaders face and provide an evaluation of the role of leadership in responding to them
- Discuss strategies leaders can employ to strengthen their role and increase the quality of teaching and learning within their institution.
Critically Discuss How a Leader’s Style Can Affect the Quality of Teaching and Learning in Educational Institutions
Introduction
In different educational institutions, leadership can play a vital role in improving the quality and performance of education. Leadership styles are in the limelight, and these can be adapted to change the behavior of students. Of course, every educational institution has some vital goals and objectives. Thus, an appropriate leadership style must be adapted to meet this goal. Quality of teaching and learning in the educational sector seems imperative. Therefore, study revolves around some key leadership styles and theories along with some implications for teaching and learning. In the competitive educational industry, different challenges occur. However, by streamlining the role of the leadership, objectives can be met adequately.
Quality of Teaching and Learning in Educational Institutions
Quality of teaching and learning in the educational institution can be enhanced through effective leadership. Every teacher has to play the role of the leader and depict the right path for students to strengthen their ability to emerge strongly in both society and corporations. The quality can be measured through the remarkable academic success of students. Now, it seems pertinent to understand the role of leadership in education and make all students great contributors to society and corporations (Bush, 2008).
Leadership Theories and Styles
Autocratic, democratic, and Laisser-Faire are three main leadership styles. In the authoritarian leadership style, the teacher or leader makes all decisions by themselves. On the other hand, in democratic leadership, teachers can involve students in the decision-making process. Making students feel that they are an essential part of the whole process seems worthy. Laisser-Faire leadership seems like a delegation, as the leader does not guide a group or followers. In the contemporary era, pedagogical leadership has become a need for an educational institution. It supports the teaching and learning process, as a leader can use his pedagogical knowledge to understand the learning and improve the quality of education (DROBOT & ROŞU, 2012).
Implications for Teaching and Learning
In the learning or teaching process, all leadership styles can be adopted. For Instance, for beginners, the teacher can contain the autocratic leadership style, as a group may not be able to make decisions. However, when dealing with mature students, a teacher can improve the quality of teaching by including students in the decision-making process. Also, the delegation can be enhanced when dealing with extraordinary students in the educational institution. Thus, based on the nature of course and behavior of students, pertinent styles can be adopted. However, pedagogical knowledge can be reflected in these leadership styles to make a difference (Male & Palaiologou, 2017).
Challenges Educational Leaders Face
The big challenge that a teacher or a leader can face in educational institutions is student satisfaction. Lack of student satisfaction is quite visible, which may also create a negative impact on the quality of education. Apart from it, communication is also a key challenge, especially when delegating different activities. Educational leaders have to build a constructive relationship with students to meet quality objectives (Buck, 2017).
An Evaluation of the Role of Leadership in Responding to Them
The role of leadership has evolved. For Instance, all activities performed by students must be appreciated and encouraged. The role can be streamlined and justified by combining democratic and pedagogical knowledge. Leadership in education should always be perceived in high context (Bush, 2008).
Strategies Leaders to Strengthen Role & Increasing the Quality
Strengthening the role of the leadership in the educational institution is necessary, and it can be done by identifying behaviors of students in the class. The teacher can adopt a leadership style or change it with the time to derive or predict results. Student’s involvement seems mandatory in the learning process, as he may become a leading contributor to the quality improvement and development process (Male & Palaiologou, 2017).
Conclusion
In the end, it is to conclude that the quality of education can be improved by assessing the need for a leadership style in the educational institution. Different methods and theories must be understood by educational leaders to set quality objectives. Pertinent leadership style and application of approach is a primary driver of the learning process. Educational leaders can come up with some strategic goals for students, and constructive relationships help to make the difference.
References
Buck, A. (2017). Leadership Matters: How leaders at all levels create great schools. John Catt Educational.
Bush, T. (2008). Leadership and Management Development in Education. SAGE.
DROBOT, L., & ROŞU, M. (2012). Teachers’ Leadership Style in the Classroom and Their Impact Upon High School Students. International conference of scientific paper.
Male, T., & Palaiologou, I. (2017). Pedagogical leadership in action: Two case studies in English schools. Journal of Leadership in Education, 26 (6), 733-748.
