Leadership in Educational Administration | Crash Course for UGC NET Education PDF Download

Leadership ŁŁ Educational Administration

Different theories of leadership and models have been propounded to provide explanations on the leadership phenomenon and to help leaders influence followers toward achieving organisational goals.

Introduction

The actions of human beings in society are determined by their associations with different organisations. Every organisation has its own purposes and objectives. The achievement of objectives depends upon the cooperative efforts of individuals and the competence of the leader.

Many times organisations have failed when either their leaders have been of low calibre or there have been a lack of cooperative effort among its members and the objectives of the organisation are not essential and good for the society.

Leadership

Leadership is an art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. It is the ability to inspire others. Effective leadership is based upon the ideas, which inspire others to act as the leader wants them to act. In a nutshell, the leader is the inspiration and director of the action. He only is the person in the group that possesses the combination of personality and leadership skills that makes others want to follow his/her direction.

There are people who seem to be naturally endowed with more leadership abilities than others. Some people can learn to become leaders by improving particular skills. History is full of those people, having no previous leadership experience, have stepped in the crisis period and directed others to follow their suggested course of action.

Leadership is the process of influencing the behaviour of others, to work willingly and enthusiastically for achieving predetermined goals. It is indispensable for the successful functioning of an organisation and attainment of its goals and objectives. Leadership transforms potential into reality. It is the ultimate act, which brings to success, all the potentials that are in an organisation and its people. Achievement of organisational goals very much depends on how effectively leadership is exercised in the organisation. Organisational leaders are the key figures, who can change the work climate so that all the employees are motivated to work hard with the results so that the goals can be achieved.

Definitions of Leadership

According to Tenenbaum, "Leadership is interpersonal influence exercised in a situation and directed through the communication process, towards the attainment of a specific goal or goals".

According to Keith Davis, "Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically". According to Terry, "Leadership is essentially a continuous process of influencing behaviour. A leader breathes life into the group and motivates it towards goals. The lukewarm desires for achievement are transformed into a burning passion for accomplishment".

Nature of Leadership

•

Leadership is essential for managing. The ability to lead effectively is one of the keys to being an effective manager because she/he has to combine resources and lead a group to achieve objectives.

•

Leadership and motivation are closely interconnected. By understanding motivation, one can appreciate better what people want and why they act as they do. A leader can encourage or

dampen workers motivation by creating favorable unfavorable working environment in the organisation .. a or

•

The essence of leadership is followership. In other words, it is the willingness of people to follow a person that makes that person a leader. Moreover, people tend to follow those whom they see as providing a means of achieving their desires, needs and wants.

•

Leadership involves an unequal distribution of power between leaders and group members. Group members are not powerless, they can shape group activities in some ways. Still, the leader will usually have more power than the group members.

•

Leaders can influence the followers' behaviour in some ways. Intact, leaders can influence workers either to do ill or well for the company. The leader must be able to empower and motivate the followers to the cause.

•

The leader must coexist with the subordinates or followers and must have the clear idea about their demands and ambitions. This creates loyalty and trust in subordinates for their leader.

•

Leadership is to be concerned about learning ethics and values from their leaders. Leaders are the real teachers of ethics and they can reinforce ideas. It is very important for leaders to make positive statements of ethics if they are not hypocritical.

Characteristics of Leadership

•

It is a continuous process of behaviour, it is not one shot activity.

•

It may be seen in terms of the relationship between a leader and his followers (individuals and/or groups), which arises out of their functioning for common goals.

•

By exercising his leadership, the leader tries to influence the behaviour of individuals or groups of individuals around him to achieve common goals.

•

The followers work willingly and enthusiastically to achieve those goals. Thus, there is no coercive force, which induces the followers to work.

•

Leadership gives an experience of help to followers, to attain common goals. It happens when the leader feels the importance of individuals, gives them recognition and conveys them about the importance of activities performed by them..

•

Leadership is exercised in a particular situation, at a given point of time and under a specific set of circumstances. It implies that leadership styles may be different under different situations.

Styles of Leadership

Leadership style refers to a leader's behaviour towards group members. The behavioural pattern which the leader reflects in his role as a leader is often described as the style of leadership. Leadership style is the result of the leader's philosophy, personality, value system, and experience. It also depends on the types of followers and organisational atmosphere prevailing in the enterprise.

The different types of leadership styles are

Leadership Style Based on Authority

They are of four types-

1.

Autocratic Leadership It relies on coercion and its style is paternalism, arbitrariness, command and compliance. The autocratic leaders give orders which must be obeyed by subordinates. He

determines policies for the group without consulting them and does not give detailed information about future plans, but simply tells what immediate steps they must take.

II.

Democratic Leadership Style of leadership that uses legitimate power can be classified as democratic leadership. A democratic leader usually gives instructions only after consulting with the group. He sees to it that policies are worked out in group discussion and with the acceptance of the group

Ill. Laissez-Faire Leadership The leadership style which allows maximum freedom to followers may be called Laissez-Faire leadership. It gives employees a high degree of independence in their working operations. In this style, the leader completely abdicates his leadership position, to give all responsibility of most of the work entrusted to him, to the group which he is supposed to lead, limiting his authority to maintain the contact of the group with persons outside the group. This is also known as the permissive style of leadership.

IV.

Paternalistic Leadership Under this style of leadership, the leader assumes that his function is paternal or fatherly. He works to help, guide, protect and keep his followers happily working together as members of a family. He provides them with good working conditions and employee services. This mode of leadership produces good and quick results if the followers are highly educated and have a sincere desire to go ahead and perform with responsibility.

Linkert's Four Styles of Managerial Leadership

Rensis Linkert identified four main styles of leadership, in particular around decision-making and the degree to which people are involved in the decision:

Exploitive Authoritative In this style, the leader has a low concern for people and uses such methods as threats and other fear based methods to achieve performance. Communication is almost entirely downwards and the psychologically distant concerns of people are ignored.

Benevolent Authoritative When the leader adds concern for people to an authoritative position, a 'benevolent dictatorship' is formed. The leader now uses rewards to encourage appropriate performance and listens more concerns lower down the organization, being limited to what their subordinates think that the boss want to hear. to

Consultative The upward flow of information here is still cautious, although the leader is making gemfive efforts to listen carefully to ideas. MAjor decisions are still centrally made.

Participative At this level, the leader makes participative methods, engaging people in decision-making the organization. People across the organization are psychologically closer together at all levels.

Style in the Managerial to analyze that are

Leadership The Managerial Grid model helps managers/leaders their own leadership styles through a technique known as grid training. Leaders can identify how they with respect to their concern for production and people with the Managerial Grid model.

They identified five basic leadership styles

•

Country club style leadership

•

Produce or perish leadership

•

Impoverished leadership

•

Middle of the road leadership

•

Team leadership Tannebaum and Schmidt group together

Leadership Continuum

The Leadership Continuum Model of (1973) suggests that autocratic leaders are more likely to make their own decisions and not engage their subordinates, whereas a more democratic leader gives subordinates a greater degree of delegation in decision-making. In 1938, Lewin and Lippitt proposed classifications of leaders based on how much involvement leaders placed into task and relationship needs. This range of leadership behaviours was expressed along a continuum by Tannebaum and Schmidt in 1973, ranging from boss-centered (task) to subordinate-centered (relationship). Thus, it can be said that leadership is the ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with confidence and zeal. Leadership is the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. It is the human factor which binds and motivates it towards goals.

Approaches to Leadership

The approaches to leadership and theories of leadership evolved with greater understanding of the

•

needs and expectations of people at work.

•

impact of different leadership styles on followers and how the attitudes, behaviour and competence of followers impact leaders.

•

effectiveness of different leadership styles in different situations.

The main approaches to leadership are discussed in detail

Trait Theory of Leadership It is

It is considered to be the first modern theory of leadership. It became popular at the end of the 20th century and remains popular till today. The theory identifies the specific personality traits that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. It is based upon the premise that leaders are born, not made, rather than being developed through learning. This theory focuses on the differences between leaders and followers, with the assumption that people in leadership positions would display more traits than those in subordinate positions.

It is often equated to the 'Great Man Theory of Leadership'. It was first proposed by Thomas Carlyle. He believed that "history is shaped by extraordinary leaders and the ability to lead was something you inherited at birth and not something that could be developed". His ideas inspired researchers to look more into leadership and inheritable traits.

It seeks to determine what makes a successful leader from the leader's own personal characteristics. From the very beginning, people have emphasised that a particular individual was a successful leader because of his certain qualities or characteristics. It's studies were quite popular between 1930 to 1950.

The method of study was to select leaders to eminence and their characteristics were studied. It was of the hypothesis that the persons having certain traits, can become successful leaders.

Various research studies have given intelligence, attitudes, personality and biological factors as ingredients for effective leaders. A review of various research studies has been presented by Stogdill.

According to him, various traits have been suggested and they are

•

Physical and constitutional factors (height, weight, physique, energy, health and appearance)

•

Intelligence

•

Self-confidence

•

Sociability.

•

Will (initiative, persistence, ambition

•

Dominance

•

Surgency (talkative, cheerfulness,enthusiasm, expressiveness, alertness and originality)

But in later study, Ghiselli has found supervisory ability, achievement, motivation, self-actualisation, intelligence, self-assurance and decisiveness as the qualities related with leadership success.

Transformational Theory of Leadership

Transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms individuals. It is concerned with values, ethical standards and long term goals. It involves assessing follower's motives, satisfying their needs and treating them as full human beings. It sub-assumes the charismatic and visionary leadership. It is an all encompassing approach that can be used to describe a wide range of leadership, from very specific attempts to influence followers on one level to very broad attempts to influence the whole organisation and even entire culture.

Transformational leaders are generally energetic, enthusiastic and passionate. Not only, these leaders are concerned and involved in the process, but they are also focused on helping every member of the group to succeed as well.

Components of Transformational Leadership

There are four different components of transformational leadership and they are

Intellectual Stimulation Transformational leaders not only challenge the status quo, but they also encourage creativity among followers. They encourage followers to explore new ways of doing things and new opportunities to learn.

Individualised Consideration Transformational leadership also involves offering support and encouragement to individual followers. In order to foster supportive relationships, transformational leaders keep lines of communication open, so that followers feel free to share ideas, so that leaders can offer direct recognition of each follower's unique contributions. to

Inspirational Motivation Transformational leaders have a clear vision about what they are able to articulate to followers. These leaders also help followers to experience the same passion and motivation to fulfil these goals.

Idealised Influence Transformational leaders serve as a role model for followers. Because followers trust and respect the leader, they emulate the leader and internalise his/her ideals.

Transactional Leadership

Give and take is the hallmark of transactional leadership. It is indeed modeled just like a business transaction. This theory emphasizes the realisation of a desired outcome and result. The leaders motivate the followers by way of reward system i.e. rewarding performers and punishing the non-performers. The theory emphasises maintaining a cordial relationship with the followers and leaders and followers must work mutually to meet organisational goals. Transactional Leadership Theory suggests that leaders have to trade reward and punishment with their team in order to get the job done. Transactional leaders concern themselves with maintaining the status quo and working towards achieving today's task (Hackman et al, 2009).

Transactional leadership is not concerned with the future and does not seek to change and evolve. Burns (1978) noted that transactional leadership refers to a type of leadership that is based on an exchange relationship between leader and follower. Such leadership does not bring leaders and followers to pursue higher purposes. Transactional leadership involves routine activities, assigning work, evaluating performance and making decisions. transactional leaders are as

The characteristic features exhibited by transactional leaders are as follows

•

The leader links the goals of the organisation to rewards and clearly specifies the expectations, provides the needed and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) goals for the subordinates.

•

The leader actively monitors the performance of the subordinates, watches and searches for deviations from rules and standards and takes corrective actions to prevent mistakes.

•

A leader intervenes only if standards are not met and even uses punishments for poor performances.

•

The leader gives an environment to subordinates, where they can make decisions. In this form, the leader himself abdicates from responsibilities and avoids making decisions, due to which the followers lack the direction.

•

Transactional leaders are power holders by virtue of their position in the organisation. They have the capacity to influence others because of their job.

•

These leaders pay attention to follower's work in order to find faults and deviations. This type of leadership is effective in crisis and emergency situations, as well as when projects need to be carried out in a specific style.

Value Based Leadership

It is an idea that leaders should draw on their own and follow values for direction and motivation. Value Based Leadership's Philosophy asserts that people are mostly motivated by values and live according to their beliefs. In other words, values are our most natural motivators. It is natural for leaders to refer to their own values in creating a vision or making decisions and equally it makes sense for leaders to connect with their follower's values, which make them more likely to act.

Richard Barrett, an author of Building a Organisation, defines values-based leadership as "a way of making authentic decisions that build the trust and commitment of employees and customers". As

philosophy, value based leadership assumes that an organisation, based around shared values is likely to be more flexible and productive. Leaders who apply this philosophy are likely to experience certain inner benefits.

They are

•

They will make better choices,feeling more comfortable to act upon them.

•

They are likely to build better, more trusting relationships with followers.

•

They are more likely to feel aligned with their 'authentic self'.

A person's values are at the core of their sense So by definition, authentic leaders will always act from their highest values.

Cultural Based Leadership

In the educational approach, we can see that culture plays a vital role. The various administrative practices make way to academic governance and capacity to leadership. Any kind of leadership and decision-making affects the lifestyle and work style of people in a cultural approach. The work of the person is guided by the culture, in which they tend to make their subordinates work.

The behaviour can be seen as a reward or punishment relating to the entire administrative system. By correcting the errors of subordinates, the efficiency of the leader also improves. These cultures influence various aspects of society, attaining associate spirit and objective goals. Therefore, cultural approaches prove to be important in the form of development and motivational elements of teaching, administrative system and social order.

Psychodynamic Approach to Leadership

In Psycho dynamic Leadership theory, we see that the ideal leadership style is one that takes the input into the account. These leaders encourage participation and contribution from group members and help group members to feel more relevant and committed to the decision-making process. In this theory, the leader retains the right to allow the inputs of others. Thus, one can say that the involvement of leader in decision-making improves the understanding of the issues involved by those who must carry out the decisions.

It is believed that people are more committed to actions, where they have been involved in the relevant decision-making, that people are less competitive and more collaborative, when they are working on common goals and that several people deciding together can make better decisions than one person alone.

Charismatic Approach to Leadership

Charismatic Leadership Theory is also known as Great Man Theory, can be traced back to ancient times. Plato's republic and Confucius's analects dealt with this type of leadership. They provided some insights of leadership, Subsequent studies based on these insights have suggested that a leader is born and not made. A leader has some charisma, which acts as an influencer. Charisma is a Greek word meaning gift. Thus, charisma is a God gifted attribute in a person which makes him a leader, irrespective of the situation in which he works. Charismatic leaders are those, who inspire followers and have a major

impact on their organisations through their personal vision and energy. According to Robert House, "The charismatic leader has extremely high level of self-confidence, dominance and a strong conviction in the normal righteousness of his/her beliefs or atleast the ability to convince the followers that he/she possesses such confidence and conviction".

The basic assumptions and implications of charismatic leadership theory are as follows

•

Leaders in general and great leaders in particular, have some exceptional inborn leadership qualities, which are bestowed upon them by the divine power.

•

These inborn qualities are sufficient for a leader to be successful.

•

Since, these qualities are inborn, these cannot be enhanced through education and training. Further, since these qualities are of personal nature, these cannot be shared by others.

•

These leadership qualities make a leader effective and situational factors do not have any influence.

Leadership Models

Leadership models may be defined as guides that suggest specific leadership behaviour to use in a specific environment or situation. Generally, these models are in graphical forms and they help to make the mechanism more simple. A good leader must be aware of different leadership models. So far, the users and the organisation members have given positive feedback on using such

leadership model. It gives an effective output for a long time. An individual of a small or large scale firm can successfully perform to meet such deadlines and organise the team members properly. Usually, the team members are given the freedom, only if they are skilled and experienced in most of the leadership models.

Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid

The Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid also known as Leadership Grid.

Managerial Grid Model

The Managerial Grid Model (1964) is a behavioural leadership model, developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton. This model identifies five different leadership styles based on the concern for people (relationships) and concern for production (tasks). They made a grid, shown in which clarifies the leadership style as exemplified by an individual. The grid reads like a normal graph, wherein the first digit signifies the X-axis, while the second digit denotes the Y-axis.

•

1, 1 Improved Management Often referred to as LaissezFaire leadership. Leaders in this position have little concern for people or productivity, avoid taking sides and stay out of conflicts. They do just enough to get by.

•

1,9 Country Club Management Managers in this position have great concern for people and little concern for production. They try to avoid conflicts and concentrate on being well-liked. For them, the task is less important than good interpersonal relations. Their goal is to keep people happy.

High 9 8 Ł 7 0.. & 6 o E 5 c 4 0 3 2 • (1.9) Country club style (1.1) • (5.5) Middle-of-the road style • Impoverished style • (9 9) Team slyle (9.1) Produce or perish style Low!i ++ ii II + II-High 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Concern for Production The Management Grid-A graphical representation of the Managerial Grid

•

9,1 Authority Compliance Managers in this position, have great concern for production and little concern for people. They desire tight control in order to get tasks done efficiently. They consider creativity and human relations to be necessary.

•

5,5 Organisation Man Management It is often termed as middle of the road leadership. Leaders in this position have medium concern for people and production. They attempt to balance their concern for both people and production, but they are not committed

•

9,9 Team Management This style of leadership is considered to be an ideal leadership. Such managers have great concern for both people and production. They work to motivate employees to reach their highest level of accomplishment. They are flexible and responsive to change and they understand the need for change.

Tri-Dimensional Model

Reddin (1970) has conceptualised a three-dimensional grid borrowing some of the ideas from the managerial grid. Three-dimensional axis represents task-orientation, relationship orientation and Conversely, when the style is inappropriate to a given situation, it is termed as ineffective. If the effectiveness. By adding an effectiveness dimension to the task-oriented behaviour dimensions, he has integrated the concept of leadership styles with the situational demand of a specific environment.

In his 3D Management Styles theory, William J Reddin has stressed the dimensions of effectiveness. In this model, the concept of leadership style is integrated with the situational demands of a specific environment. When the style of a leader is appropriate to a given situation, it is termed as effective.

effectiveness of a leader's behaviour style depends upon the situation in which it is used, it would follow that any of the basic styles may be effective or ineffective, depending on the situation. The difference

between effective and ineffective styles often lies not in the actual behaviour of the leader, but in the appropriateness of his behaviour to the environment in which it takes place. Thus, essentially the third dimension in the leader's behaviour style syndrome is the environment.

Although effectiveness appears to be in either situation in this model, in reality it should be represented as a continuum. Any given style in a particular situation could fall somewhere in this continuum from 'extremely effective' 'extremely ineffective'. Effectiveness, therefore, is a matter of degree and there could be an infinite only three facets to effective dimension. To illustrate this point, the effectiveness dimension has been divided in quartiles, ranging on the effective side from +1 to +4 and the ineffective side from 1 to -4. essence.

The four effective and four ineffective styles show how appropriate a leader's basic style is in a given situation, as seen by his or her followers, superiors and associates. A model, such as the Tri-Dimensional Leader Effectiveness Model is distinctive because it does not depict a single ideal leader's behaviour style as appropriate in all situations. For example, the high task and high relationship styles are appropriate only in certain situations.

Fiedler's Contingency Theory

In Contingency Theory of Leadership, the success leader is a function of various contingencies in the form of subordinate, tasks and/or group variables. This theory is a class of Behavioural Theory that contends that there is no leading leadership style that may be effective in some situations, but not in others. An effect of this would be that the leaders who are very effective at one place and at times may become unsuccessful, when transplanted to another situation or when the factors around them change.

Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-Worker (LPC} Theory

Fiedler identified the Least Preferred Co-Worker for leaders, by asking them first to think of a person with which they worked that they would like least to work with again and then to score the person on a range of scale between positive factors (friendly, helpful, cheerful, etc) and negative factors(unfriendly, unhelpful, etc).

Generally, a high LPC leader scores the other person as positive and a low LPC leader scores as negative. High LPC leaders tend to have close and positive relationships and act in a supportive way, even prioritising the relationship before the task. Low LPC leader puts the task first and will only turn to relationships, when they are satisfied with the work.

Three factors identified about the leader are as follows

Leader-Member Relations The inter-personal relationship between leader and followers may be expressed in terms of good through poor, with qualifying modifiers attached as necessary. It is obvious that the leader's personality and the personalities of subordinates play an important role in the variable.

Task structure The nature of the subordinate's task described as structured or unstructured, associated with the amount of creative freedom, allowed the subordinate to accomplish the task and how the task has been defined.

Position Power The degree to which the position itself enables the leader to get the group members to comply with and to accept his/her direction and leadership.

Hersey's and Blanchard's Situational Leadership Model

that leaders choose the best course of action based upon situational variables. Different styles of leadership may be more appropriate for certain types of decision-making. Therefore, one can say that the basic assumption of this theory is that the best decision of the leader depends on a range of situational factors.

Hersey and Blanchard's Theory

the basic premise of this theory is that effective leadership requires leadership flexibility, since different situations require different leadership approaches and tactics. Blanchard and Hersey characterised leadership style in terms of the amount of direction and of support that the leader gives to his/her followers and so created a simple grid.

+ -□ 0 s co � � CO ° � 0 0 � 5 0 I 9 � � 59 � � 9 so � G 69 9 � �� -Directive Behaviour +

Directing leaders Define the roles and tasks of the followers and supervise them closely. Decisions are made by the leader, so communication is largely one way.

Coaching Leaders Define roles and tasks, but seek ideas and suggestions from the followers. Decisions remain the leader's prerogative, but communication is much more two way.

Supporting leaders Pass day-to-day decisions, such as task allocation and processes to the followers. The leader facilitates and takes part in decisions, but control is with the follower.

Delegating Leaders Are involved in decisions and problem solving, but control is with the followers. The followers decide when and how the leader will be involved.

Leader-Member Exchange Theory

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory was initially called the Vertical Dyad Linkage theory. The theory was introduced by George Graen and various colleagues in the 1970s and has been revised and refined

in the years since. LMX Theory emphasises the dyadic (i.e. one on one) relationships between leaders and individual subordinates, instead of the traits or behaviours of leaders or situational characteristics.

The theory focuses on determining the type of leader-subordinate relationships that promote effective outcomes and the factors that determine whether leaders and subordinates will be able to develop high quality relationships.

According to LMX theory, leaders do not treat all subordinates in the same manner, but establish close relationships with some (the in-group) while remaining aloof from others (the out-group). Those in the in-group enjoy relationships with the leader that is marked by trust and mutual respect. They tend to be involved in important activities and decisions. Conversely, those in the out-group are excluded from important activities and decisions.

LMX theory suggests that high quality relationships between a leader-subordinate will lead to positive outcomes, such as better performance, lower turnover job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The quality of the relationship is reflected by the degree of mutual trust, loyalty, support, respect and religion.

The Leader Member Exchange Theory is rooted in the belief that followers have a relationship that could yield advantage.

Advantages of LMX Theory

•

It is an exceptional theory of leadership as unlike the other theories, it concentrates and talks about specific relationships between the leader and each subordinate. the

•

It focuses our attention to the significance of communication in leadership.

•

It is very much valid and practical in its approach. Disadvantages of LMX Theory

Disadvantages of LMX theory

•

It fails to explain the particulars of how high-quality exchanges are created.

•

It objected on grounds of fairness and justice as some followers receive special attention from leaders at work place and other followers do not.