Successful Leadership Styles
Fatima S. Munoz
“Where there is effective leader comes a developed organization” (Munoz, 2018). Many schools are managed by diverse personalities and apt. The kind of leadership style employed by a leader has a huge turn in the overall organization structure of a school constituting its staff, students, and stakeholders. Because of myriad of unexpected situations that a school head encounter in his leadership and management, the application of only one leadership style is not enough. This is because of the fact that no single leadership style could sustain the success in school management and leadership. It is the application of the right style on the situation that needs it. Having distinct leadership styles is presumably grounded on the personality of the leader that includes his/her values, beliefs, principles as well as his/ her adeptness.
As mentioned, there are more than just a couple of leadership styles that a leader establishes, thus affecting its organization’s success. For example, in the Department of Education, lately, educational reformations and formations such as planning and management teams were instigated pursuant to the national order down to central, division and school levels. The decision making becomes collective because teachers take part in the formation of informed decision making in many aspects of educational leadership and governance, accountability and continuous improvement, curriculum instruction as well as management of resources. The kind of leadership style that is at par with this practice is the democratic leadership also known as the participative leadership. This style is usually considered the best option for most companies. The opposite of autocratic leadership, this style emphasizes that management offers guidance to its teams and departments while accepting input from individual staff members. Leaders reserve the right to make final decisions but encourage feedback, ideas, and suggestions from all employees. Participative leaders generally have a more content workforce, since each individual has input into decision-making.
In line with the given example, school planning teams and other committees are created in schools to actualize and fully realize the mission and vision of the Department. Roles are distributed among teachers, students and stakeholders. When the leader applies the democratic leadership style coupled with servantleadership style, the management practices becomes improved. Everyone in the school community are being served by the leader, thus, the connection and communication made among its people results to series of positive influence because every day, leadership is earned.
However, if autocratic style will be used considering that there are delegated school planning and management teams, there could be a solid division between the leader and the workers. This could only be applied when fast decisions must be made without employee involvement.
Hence, leadership styles are applied in varied circumstances and when the situation calls for it. There is no single best leadership style because the foundation of leadership is establishing good and harmonious working relationship with people and not the number of achievements reached.
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The author is Teacher III at Rodolfo V. Feliciano Memorial High School, San
Pedro II Magalang, Pampanga