PUPIL: International Journal of Teaching, Education and Learning

ISSN 2457-0648

Salome Chkheidze, 2023

Volume 7 Issue 2, pp. 171-179
Received: 25th March 2023
Revised: 3rd April 2023, 28th July 2023
Accepted: 2nd August 2023
Date of Publication: 15th September 2023
DOI- https://doi.org/10.20319/pijtel.2023.72.171179
This paper can be cited as: Chkheidze, S. (2023). Role of Leader in Educational Management. PUPIL:
International Journal of Teaching, Education and Learning, 7(2), 171-179.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License. To
view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

ROLE OF LEADER IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Salome Chkheidze
PhD Student, Business Administration, Georgian American University
IMS Manager, Independent Auditor of Management Systems and Occupational Health and Safety,
Tbilisi, Georgia
[email protected]

Abstract
The main objective of this article is to describe a role of leader and define its importance in
educational management. The role of a leader in educational management is critically important to
make the educational institution provide high-quality education to students, to create an effective
management system and motivate the staff to go towards the aim (Eacott, 2015). On the educational
context, leadership influences the process, which finally leads to the achievement of desired purpose.
A good leader should develop a vision on values of their educational institutions on personal and
professional sides. A successful leader makes the staff love their job and be determined to achieve
success. Educational leadership is a process, where a leader takes the initiative to facilitate the
following conditions for implementing change in teaching and learning (Surya, 2011). The leader in
educational leadership is responsible for setting the vision and mission of the educational institution,
which serves as a guiding principle for all stakeholders, including students, teachers, and staff.
Moreover, the leader must ensure that the educational institution environment is conducive to
learning, which includes creating a safe and respectful atmosphere for students and teachers.
Keywords
Leader, Educational Leadership, Skills, Role, Style, Management

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1. Introduction
Martin M. Chemers in Hoy and Miskel said that leadership is a process of social influence
in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common
task. (Chemers, 2014)
According to Peter Drucker, (Drucker, 2006) leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high
sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond
its normal limitations. Leadership style is a behavioral approach of leaders in order to have an
influence and effect on their employees. In this article, I will try to demonstrate the most effective
school leadership style as a research outcome. A leadership style gives the direction to leaders to set,
design and implement plans and strategies to achieve the objectives of the educational institution.

2. Styles of Leadership
While discussing the role of leader in educational leadership, it is important to discuss
styles of leadership. I would like to highlight (8) leadership styles, which are described shortly later
in this article.
Firstly, it is autocratic leadership skill or authoritarian leadership style. This style of
leadership is more focused on the final results and they often make decisions alone or with very small
group of people. Usually they expect their employees do exactly what they require them to do.
Second, bureaucratic leadership style is more based on strictly following the written
procedures and regulations. The bureaucratic style is more focused on specific duties within a
hierarchical system, where each member of the staff has their responsibilities and duties, and there is
little need for collaboration and creativity.
Third and one of the effective leadership style is Coaching Leadership style. A coaching
leader identifies the strengths and weaknesses of employees to help each employee improve. This
type of leadership gives a chance to team members to set smart goals and then provide them with the
feedback to promote growth. Usually coaching leadership creates positive and motivating
environment.
Laissez-faire leadership is accurately defined as let them be style of leadership style. This
type of leader delegates tasks to team members and give them freedom of work with no or little
supervision as this type of leaders are mostly busy with some other projects rather than supervising
their employees. This type of leadership is effective for creative and highly experienced employees.

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The democratic style is where the input received from team members is a base for decision
making by a leader. In a democratic leadership style, leaders are oriented to ask their team for input
and then take the feedback from the team into consideration to make a decision further.
Transformational leadership involves a leader who inspires and motivates their team to
achieve a shared vision, often by providing support, encouragement, and personal development
opportunities. Transformational leader expectation from their team is high and usually this style of
leader encourage their team members to work and live through a transformation or considerable
improvement.
Servant Leadership skill is another style of leadership, where leaders live by a people-first
mindset. This style of leaders believe team members will be more effective and produce great work
if they feel personally and professionally fulfilled. Emphasis on employee satisfaction and
collaboration is what make servant leaders more respected by the team members.
The last leadership style, discussed in this article is transactional leadership, which is
considered as more short-term and sometimes it is described as a give and take kind of transaction.
In this style of leadership, leaders reward their employees rewarded for exactly the work they would
have performed. This leadership style is quite often used in sales and marketing jobs.

3. School Leadership
According to the United Nations and UNESCO, strengthening school leadership to
improve teaching and learning is one of the strategies put forward to achieve target 4.c of the
Education 2030 Agenda, which addresses the need to increase the supply of qualified teachers
(UNESCO, 2016; United Nations, 2015). The aim of the School Leadership is to get the best out of
teachers and students. Effective school leadership needs a variety of skills, including communication,
problem-solving, decision-making, and interpersonal skills. A school leader should work
collaboratively with faculty, staff, parents and students to create a positive and inclusive school
culture. School leadership also involves setting goals and procedures, and monitoring and evaluating
student progress and teacher performance. The ultimate goal of school leadership is to promote
academic achievement, social-emotional development and overall well – being of students and
employees.
It is important to distinguish educational leadership from educational management. To
describe it, I will summarize it as follows: (Waters, 2022)
Leading concerns vision rather than the implementation, which is more managing concern.
Moreover, leadership includes strategic issues, transformation and ends, while managing concerns

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more operational issues, transactions and means instead of ends. Also it is important to notice that if
leading concerns more people, managing is more oriented on systems.
Need for distribution of leadership is caused by the increased responsibilities and
accountability both within schools and across schools. Distribution of leadership in schools refers to
the practice of sharing leadership responsibilities among various stakeholders in a school community,
including teachers, students, parents, and administrators. There are a lot of benefits which school may
receive from the Distribution of leadership School effectiveness may be improved by distributing
leadership among people and organizational structures. (CSAS, 2021)
Distributive Leadership in schools is one of the most effective leadership approach where
decision-making and responsibility are shared among a team of leaders, rather than being centralized
in the hands of one individual. This leadership model recognizes that expertise and leadership
potential exist at all levels of an organization, and that collaboration and collective decision-making
can lead to more effective outcomes. School distributive leadership involve various strategies such as
collaborative planning and decision-making, professional development opportunities for all staff
members, monitoring and coaching programs, and the delegation of leadership responsibilities to
different individuals or teams. (Tomlinson, 2004)
Basic characteristics of distributive leadership may include collaborative planning.
Distributive leadership promotes collaborative planning among school leaders, which allows for a
more comprehensive and coordinated approach to school improvement. Here is important to notice
that collaborative planning involves cooperation of the staff in one specific department, which is
preparing the plan, but collaboration across different departments too. This approach can also lead to
cooperation across different fields in school and finally will lead to the correct and effective planning
for the whole educational institution. (Surya, 2011)
Another important characteristic is shared decision-making. Distributive leadership
involves decision-making as shared among a team of leaders rather than being centralized in the hands
of one individual. The process involves bringing together a group of individuals with different areas
of expertise and perspectives to work together to make decisions that affect the school community.
Decisions may be much more effective if the group of decision makers consist not only from leaders,
but from teachers, head teachers and representatives from different departments. A leader can’t
always know the depth of any department and staff’s point of view, that’s why if the group of decision
makers include representatives from different departments, decisions will be much more efficient.
Moreover, collaborative decisions raise a sense of responsibility and people, being involved in the
process, will be much more motivated to make their decisions goal oriented and achieve success.

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Professional Development is another important feature of distributive leadership. By

sharing leadership responsibilities and encouraging collaboration, educators can learn from one
another and develop new skills and perspectives. Lessons peer observation, workshops and
collaboration with different departments will increase knowledge, collaboration and develop new
visions.
Finally, distributive leadership in schools is flexible and adaptable to changing
circumstances. It is very important for schools and educational institutions to be able to adapt to
different external and internal factors. Covid-19 Pandemic was a good example of forcing educational
institutions to adapt to online education. Some of them survived in this new environment and some
did not.
To sum up, distributive leadership may be considered as one of the most effective
leadership style for educational institutions and schools. Moreover, distributive leadership is a style
of leadership, which allows teachers to have a voice and choice in decisions. This, hence, affects
quality of the organizational institutions working process. The chart below sums up and illustrates
the role of leader in school leadership.
Figure 1: Role of leader in school leadership

Data and
evidence
based
changing
collaborati
and
on
evolving

successful
school
responsiv leadership focused on
e to its leadership
context capacity

distributed
across staff
learning
and
centered
professional
disciplines

(Source: Author’s Own Illustration)

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3.1. How Leaders Can Develop and Support Distributive Leadership (DL) Teams
School leaders need specific knowledge to respond to deal with all the challenges,
occurring in the educational institutions and duties and responsibilities. Leaders play a crucial role in
developing and supporting a distributive leadership team in their school.
No school leadership is without building a share vision. The role of leader is to work with
their team to develop a shared vision for the school and ensure that everyone understands and is
committed to this vision.
To improve efficiency and effectiveness of employee’s work, leaders should have clear
and clarified roles and responsibilities. It is important not to have them only written, but also ensure
that everyone knows what is expected of them. This can help to avoid confusion and conflicts and
promote a sense of ownership and accountability among team members. Clarifying roles and
responsibilities can also help staff members to identify areas where they can develop their skills and
knowledge and hence, have a possibility of self - reflection and professional development. Moreover,
it becomes much easier and more comfortable to collaborate when roles and responsibilities are
clearly distributed and are not doubled. (Lathan, 2021)
In addition, good leader should provide professional development for their team members
to help them develop the knowledge and skills they need to be effective. Many leaders have a sense
of fear when their employees start own professional development out of the educational institution,
when they invest in their development and do not wait until their leaders provide them with trainings.
The fear of leaders is that these employees will leave from the educational institution as they grow
and find a better place to work. This thought of leaders is quite common and, certainly, is wrong.
Good leaders assist their employees to grow professionally and encourage them to use their
knowledge in developing of the educational institution. Good leaders motivate trained and
professional staff to share their knowledge with other employees and they do not overwhelm a good
employee because they can do better than others do, but assist them to become better leaders. (Slack,
2019)
Laurie says, that a leader should have an ability not only to lead effectively, but also build
relationships with the employees. The leader should consider team members as not only employees,
who leader needs to fulfill the aim, but also realized that employee’s self-awareness, health and well-
being are all important for employees engagement. So good leaders encourage their employees and
make them happy at work rather than turning work environment toxic. This can lead to in high-
performance teams of engaged and motivated employees who are loyal, culturally aligned with the
organization, and united by a shared sense of purpose in their work.

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A lot of work and studies are written and done on motivation of employees; however, the
most important is leaders to understand how to motivate their staff. Motivation affects employee’s
success and has a huge role in employee satisfaction. Taking motivation into account, it is important
to notice that intrinsic motivation specifically plays an important role how team members may feel
about their jobs, how involved and happy they are with their work. All this lead to the quality of the
employees’ work.
A good leader should be able to give employees motivation and help them achieve their
goals.
Leaders need to understand what really motivates their employees to best meet their needs
and engage them with their work. They should think how to make appropriate conditions for the team
members to encourage them to work effectively.

4. Research Issues
Issue of school management and role of leader in educational leadership is becoming actual
today. There are several problems that the educational system is mostly faced with. Firstly, it is
inadequate vision and strategic planning as some school leaders may struggle with developing a clear
vision for the school and creating effective strategies to achieve the vision. Another problem is poor
communication and collaboration. Effective communication is crucial for a school leader to convey
expectations, provide feedback, and foster collaboration among teachers, staff, students, and parents.
Insufficient communication can result in misunderstandings, low morale, and reduced productivity.
Successful leader has good communication skills and has communication with all interested parties
in order to get more information about their expectations and feedback. School leaders play a vital
role in ensuring the well-being and engagement of students. If leaders are not proactive in
implementing student support systems, fostering a positive school culture, and promoting student
involvement in extracurricular activities, it can lead to disengagement, low achievement, and
behavioral issues.
Moreover, ineffective staff management may be considered as another and one of the most
important problems, raised in educational leadership. Leaders must effectively manage and support
their teaching and administrative staff. Issues can arise when leaders fail to provide adequate training
and professional development opportunities, fail to address performance concerns, or neglect to create
a positive and supportive work environment.
It is important to note that these problems are the most common in modern educational
leadership and in this article, I will try to demonstrate how to work on these issues and offer the best
ways of successful school leadership.
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5. Conclusion
Nowadays educational leadership is becoming more and more important and role of a
leader is crucially increasing. Good leaders are people who set a vision for educational institution, set
a plan to achieve the goals and motivate employees to go towards the aim together and with success.
A good leader is one who works with approach I follow, therefore I lead. Leaders should
demonstrate that they can be followers who are ready to become a member of employees’ team and
start actually working with the team members in order to achieve the aim. Good leader can increase
productivity by 89% with supporting team members
Good leaders know that support, professional feedback and recognizing employees’ hard
work are among their most crucial tasks. However, great leaders know how to set a good example for
the employees in order to encourage them to follow.
Effective school leadership is characterized by a range of qualities and practices that
contribute to the success and improvement of a school. Vision and strategic planning is the first step
towards the effective leadership. Successful leaders develop a clear vision for the school and create a
strategic plan to achieve it. They communicate this vision to stakeholders, align goals and objectives,
and inspire others to work towards a common purpose. Another step to effective leadership is strong
communication and collaboration. Leaders should have communication with all interested parties, get
their feedback and expectations. Moreover, leaders should create a positive and inclusive school
culture that promotes respect, trust, and a sense of belonging. They establish clear expectations,
values, and behavioral norms. Staff development and support is another step towards the successful
leadership. Successful leaders invest in the professional growth of their staff. They provide ongoing
training, mentoring, and coaching opportunities. They empower teachers to take leadership roles and
contribute to school-wide decision-making processes.
Leaders should use data to inform their decision-making processes. For effective
management, leaders should make evidence based decisions. They collect and analyze relevant data
to identify areas of improvement, monitor progress, and make evidence-based decisions that
positively impact teaching and learning.
Continuous improvement and innovation is the last step in effective educational leadership.
Effective leaders should be oriented on effective analyzing and appropriate planning style, which will
aim improvement and encourage the staff to be involved in continuous improvement process.

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