School Management

Introduction

The society is in a state of constant change with the continuous development of philosophies, strategies, and beliefs. Amid the sustainability and development of the changes in organizations largely depends on their leadership and the kind of leadership style they adopt in creating and upholding the best organizational culture (Boberg, 2016). This situation applies to the administration of education organizations and schools. Blair (2018) points out the importance of good leadership in a school system influenced by the increasing expectations of the internal and external communities. This translates into the leadership style and the type of leader that a school principal being a critical success factor for the success of the school and the principal (Han, 2016). In this context, the most significant basic need for schools and other learning institutions is the types of leadership managing the school. School leadership, in this context, principals are the central elements in ensuring growth, goal achievements, and corporate success (Anderson, 2017).

Transformational school principals are, according to (James Kouzes, 2014, pp.100), those principals who possess leadership skills that can enable them to lead the school in a new higher level of success towards the developments of the school. The growth and development of a school through success achievement is not always a smooth process. It might even at some point, become stagnant or, at another point, retreat backward.

A principal who is a transformative leader can create an environment that motivates and inspires all the members of the school apparent a performance mess that a school might be in and achieve development goals even in difficult times. It means that transformation leadership is essential and critical for school principals. It does not, however, imply that principals who want to possess transformation leadership skills will not experience with practical problems that need solutions and that are challenges to their leadership.

Developing and improving transformational leadership

School principals must possess the ability to adapt to fast-changing management styles and social structures. Principals who lack this ability are usually not able to m meet the expectations of the school community of achieving success and growth (Pongpearchan, 2014). Bass (1997) regards leadership as a single most crucial determiners success or failure of any organization (Blair, 2018). This is also true for a school organization. School principals are the top leaders of a school with a significant influence on the success or failure of their schools. The method they use to manage the school determines the level of success or failure they will achieve (Ross,(2006).It means that principals must bring out the desired best performance of every stakeholder and, most importantly, teachers, student s, and all school workers (Silins, 2014).

Its development goals determine the direction that a school takes. The development goals vary according to the stages of development attained. The principal has the responsibility of ensuring that all members of the school community are working towards these goals. The performance of school members towards the achievement of the set goal varies with the different expectations of the members. A transformational principal is, therefore, able to create an environment that motivates the members to achieve the set goals through building trust, respect, motivation, and satisfaction and being able to reach a consensus in the overall objectives of the school. This, therefore, means that the focus of the principal should be on the needs of school members at each development or target achievement stage. The school members can put their belief in the leadership of the principal when he shows the ability to solve issues and set higher goals efficiently. This requires that a principal should continuously set new targets after the achievement of previous objectives .these aim should be inclusive of setting new behavior goals from different people.

The necessary process of developing and enhancing transformational leadership principals

The development of transformation leadership is a process. This process has three key stages.

The first stage is what is referred to as the embryonic stage of a transformative leader. At this stage, the principal lacks a clear understanding of what is expected of him in various situations, and there cannot be transformative leaders in a conscious and right way. It may apply to a new school principal or one who has been working with low achievements. This may be so even in cases where the principal has knowledge of transformation la leadership but lacks the skills to use that knowledge. This knowledge of transformational leadership enables the principal to think about the development success of the school. He can formulate a strategy of how to achieve these developments (Northouse, 2018). Still, the plan fails to relate to the actual status of the school at this stage. This, therefore, fails to bring development. This shows that the principal has the desire to desire to bring development but lacks the skills to lead the school towards achieved that success.

The second stage p of developing transformational leadership is the formative stage. At this level, the principals’ transformational leadership skills have grown to a considerable degree. He can think of the school development rationally while relating to the actual status of the school and then come up with a strategy of achieving the development goal (Northouse, 2018). However, his transformational leadership skills are not yet fully developed. In the process of thinking for solutions to the challenges facing the school, the considerations are divergent. The principal is not able to put the development goals into a dynamic and systematic situation that a school exists in. The strategies are also varying instead of being steady and gradual. This results in the school’s lack of sustainable development .this causes criticism and question of the leadership methods of the principal by the teacher and other members of the school community. This results in little trust in the ways of the principal as well. The good intentions are misinterpreted due to unappealing results (Northouse, 2018).

The third and last stage of transformational leadership is the mature stage.at this level, the principal can think and connect his thoughts and solutions to the real situation of the school.; The principal can continuously create effective strategies for dealing with the challenges in the school based on a correct assessment of the school situation. The principal can design the development plan of the school, assess the condition of the school is a dynamic way, developed a vision for the school, purposeful and systematically design the future of the school through consideration of every stakeholder, strive to create a steady development track for the school (Ross 2017). A principal who is at this stage of transformation leadership influences the school in the right direction in a significant way. The members of the school community develop the right attitude towards his strategies and motivate their willingness to participate in achieving the success of the school. A principal’s transformation leadership towards the development of the school results in guaranteed education quality and success

All leaders in various positions have a desire to achieve lasting solutions for their organizations. School principals should implement reforms that have a lasting impact on student performance. It is not easy to accomplish this goal without applying transformational leadership together with systems thinking.

Any person who is a leader in a school system has the understanding that it is possible to achieve positive change within a short period despite the size of the school or challenges. While it is crucial to make positive change, transformational leaders work towards attaining lasting change and holistic improvement of the school situation by following a process that all parts of the school system are integrated into sharing one method of thinking.

Transformational leadership has been a subject of study and research for a long time (Guilford2018). Studies conducted in this field have shown a positive relationship between transformational leadership and school systems (Guilford, 2018.). According to Northouse (2018), transformational leaders can motive people to desire change, desire to improve, and to be led. A transformational leader assesses the motives of the school members satisfy them, and values each one of them and their contributions to the school’s success. Jovanovica et al. (2016) write that transformational leadership has a direct impact on the innovate climate of a school, and it is a motivation for all stakeholders to produce better results than anticipated.

There are three primary and essential functions of a transformational principal in a school. The first function is sinner service of the needs of other members of the school community, empowering them, and inspiring followers to achieve lasting success.

The second function is to lead charismatically, cultivate trust, and instill confidence and pride in belonging to the team. The third and final function is to intellectually produce followers who have similar skills (Castanheira & Costa, 2011). By adoption of this model, the principal can transform the school into a self-transforming agent through the reduction of bureaucracy. The school develops into one collective unit instead of a few empowered members

Transformational leadership in school takes seven dimensions, according to Glaser, B. G. (2015). The dimensions are: development of school vision and establishment of goal, intellection stimulation providing individual support, designing and implementing best practices and values, setting high academic standards and creating professional and productive culture while fostering participation in decision making

These seven dimensions can are classified into four areas of education setting (Baptiste, 2019). These areas are the idealized influence, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation.

Idealized influence in a school context refers to the conservation of the needs of the stakeholders before the principals’ own needs. This enables the principals to avoid using his power for his gain and to set high moral standards while at the same time, he set challenging goals for the stakeholders (Northouse, 2018). In this regard, school principals are role models they can trust, and they achieve this thorough being fair in dealing with the teachers and their professional needs. Staff members develop trust in the principals and believe in their efforts to bring growth and development in the school. It is because the principals do not use their power against the teachers, and they also trust them. Despite their busy schedules, they can address the problems faced by teachers (Northouse, 2018).

Inspirational motivation refers to the ability to inspire and motivate the teachers, students and other members of the school community through display of enthusiasm and optimism at the same time engaging the members in imaging of a future success through making known his high expectations and being an example of commitment to the set goal Principals with inspirational motivation cultivates and encourage teamwork and spirit for achievement offset goals (Northouse, 2018). Such principals frequently remark teachers who have done well and push them to develop teamwork skills. The principal’s work towards achieving specific goals through helping their staff to create and uphold a collaborative and professional school culture, encouraging and supporting teacher professional development, and assisting the teachers in finding solutions to their problems together effectively. The principals usually have high academic standards and promote every stakeholder to work towards achieving this standard.

Individualized consideration refers to the principal’s efforts as a leader to treat each individual as a particular person and play the role of a mentor in the development of their follower’s potential. The last category, intellectual stimulation, refers to the efforts of the leader to cultivate innovation and creativity in his followers (Northouse, 2001). By transforming a school into a high-performance school despite the dynamics of change in society, institutional transformational leadership behaviors become more important. The success of these behaviors, however, depends on the degree which the principal portrays in their daily leadership duties. According to Gadson, (2018), school principals develop effective quality relationships with their juniors through giving each subordinate personal attention, showing a clear understanding of individual differences, and valuing and making each one of them feel valued. Such principals create time in their busy schedules to talk to teachers and pay attention to academic issues. These principals value different points of view from various stakeholders in the school.

Intellectual stimulation refers to the ability of the school principal to consistently make an effort to encourage his subordinates to become innovative and creative. It is through supporting the teacher and staff members to question assumptions and make an effort to view problems from new different dimensions (Anderson, 2017). The leaders, therefore, motivate and promote critical thinking and help the subordinates to develop their problem solving skills. Transformational leaders must motivate subordinates to perform better in a changing environment, even in the absence of clear, proximate goals. As seen here, female principals behave more politely to teachers than male colleagues. Transformational school leaders are also open to new ideas, and they are flexible enough to implement new ways in teaching

Transformational leadership and conflict management

A school principal’s leadership style has a significant influence on conflict management. A transformational leader can help conflicting groups work together towards their common goals. He achieves this, providing encouragement and support, creating an environment the releases tensions and professionally handles disruptive behavior (Baptiste, 2019). Conflict management among school principals who perceive themselves as transformational leaders prefers collaboration as the best and most frequent strategy of conflict management. Transformational leadership tends to encourage flexibility and creativity with an emphasis on critically questioning the set policies, evaluating strategies, and gain effective performance (Tengi, 2017­). Transformational leaders are focused on the future, which gives them the ability to value innovation and creativity highly. They create a synergistic environment that motivates and enhance collaboration towards change. 

Leaders of an organization set the tone for conflict management through their leadership styles. Principal’s work experience and how she perceives power influences her strategies during conflict management. Experience transformational school principals choose conflict management strategies that ensure relationships are not destroyed, and relations with other members of the staff or the school community involved in conflict management get affected negatively (Neves,2019). A great leader can identify the conflict management strategy that is appropriate for each case. A leader should recognize which conflict management qualities and skills or solutions strategy is most suitable for each situation (Marquis, 2014). 

Conclusion

Many types of research imply that transformational leadership behaviors, such as idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation, are positively related to greater employee acceptance, better performance, and increased job satisfaction at schools. These effects are vision building, high-performance expectations, developing consensus about group goals, and intellectual stimulation. Therefore, transformational leadership is very substantial for schools to move forward. However, it is an ongoing matter of discussion on whether principals demonstrate this characteristic accurately, which is the primary concern of this study (Baptiste, 2019). The results of this study reveal that principals of this sample show a high level of attributes of transformational leadership like idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation. It is safe to conclusively say that teachers’ opinions concerning their principals’ transformational leadership behaviors are positive in general.

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