Assignment 1:
‘Middle Leaders will decide on their own leadership style; some will appear charismatic, others less so. This is unimportant. Each individual’s qualities will be identified according to their ability to get the job done.’ Sonia Blandford, Middle Leadership, Harmonising Leadership and Learning.
To what exetent do you agree with this statement?
On the face of it, my initial response to Blandford’s statement would be that I whole heartedly agree with the notion that the ability to “get the job done” is the best indicator of any professional’s skills and qualities within the working environment. Certainly, as a middle leader of several subjects and of many diverse individuals needs and wants within a growing faculty; and after identifying in October that I am significantly target orientated, with my primary focus of always just wanting to get tasks completed, this notion from Blandford that ultimately completing the task is the best way to identify the qualities that any leader obtains sits firmly at the core of my values and beliefs. Indeed, I feel its right to suggest this as the experiences I have been part during my middle leader segment of my career have simply warranted this kind of industrialized and robust cognitive pattern of thinking -. and simply without it, from my experience, you wouldn’t find yourself in a viable position with students, management or indeed parents.
Unequivocally, the experiences I refer to represent the typical scenarios that any middle leader within an educational institute gets subjected to on a regular basis – namely assessment of student work; report writing; curriculum planning; appraisal deadlines and meeting budget deadlines to name but a few. Ultimately, these examples, and there are many others within education, present very different requirements of skill and qualities in order to complete them within deadlines set by management. As a result, I think that it is fair to state that as a middle leader, being able to meet the completion of these diverse and intricate tasks within set deadlines facilitates excellent reflection of the skills and qualities that a middle leader obtains – namely pragmatism, pro-activeness, organization and problem solving to name but a few, which will all facilitate to to reflect what kind of a leader a person is in my opinion.
There is no doubt, working in a private institute brings high expectations from both management and parents – which considering the finances involved sits fine with my own expectations of myself and my staff members. In my opinion, striving for continued progression on an annual basis is a fair expectation and goal for any school or organization. This said, and this is where I believe my opinion has evolved somewhat over the years due to my experiences – although I have clearly stated that I believe “getting the job done” is the best indicator of a middle leaders qualities, there are indeed ways and means of how jobs should be completed, both on a social and professional level.
Indeed, after a decade of teaching experience, with four of those years being in middle management, I have significantly come to realize that there is an ethics involved into the achieving goals and targets that also contribute to reflecting what kind of leader and practitioner you are and thus play an equally integral role in defining your qualities as a leader; especially when working with humans inside the complex environment that we have growing around us both institutionally and socially. These ways and means I speak of may include the person’s ability to interpersonally interact with colleagues; personal resilience; the level of humbleness when incorrect about important decisions; and the ability to make colleagues feel appreciated, inclusive and apart of the process. These days now from my own evolving opinion, all these elements should always be considered when attempting to “get the job done”.
As a concluding point, I refer to the literature suggested by Fullan (pg. 9,2001) “The more complex society gets, the more sophisticated leadership and personal interaction must become”. Moreover, Mumford et al. (2008) take these notions one step further, postulating that whether a leader be transactional, charismatic or servant in style, they must not solely focus on the end goal without taking into account the human processes, such as interaction, leading up to the end result. Indeed, in doing this, as Mumford et al. suggest, this would lead to a less sophisticated result in the end and thus, hinder professional development.
Both these proposals, from my perspective, help to erode the Blandford statement to a certain extent, focusing heavily on the crucial factor of a person’s ability to interpersonally interact with people being just as important as the end result. Certainly, and as I believe I have illustrated within my response, these ideas from the literature are a fair reflection of my own personal view on Blandford’s original statement, that yes getting the job done is a good way to identifying leadership qualities, but its not the only way.
References:
Fullan. Michael, (2001), Leading in a Culture of Change, Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco.
Mumford. Michael D., Antes. Alison L., Caughron. Jay J., & Freidrich. Tamara L., (2008), Charismatic, ideological, and Pragmatic Leadership: Multi-Level influences on emergence and performance, Department of Psychology, The University of Oklahoma, Published by Elsevier Inc. 2008.
Task 1: In pairs think of 5 questions you can ask about your teacher to help you get to know him better. Example questions could be:
