What Makes a Leader?
Leadership in American schools is becoming an increasingly difficult concept to define. Many educational scholars and policy makers agree that the current role of a school leader, both in the building and district or school wide, insufficiently meets the needs of American education for the 21st century. In an article by Lynn Olson, New Thinking on What Makes a Leader, she clearly argues that schools across the nation are facing a shortage of qualified and talented administrators. The article also points out that it could quite possibly be the current structure of our schools that may be contributing to the problem as well. There is consensus among educators, governmental and philanthropic groups that not addressing this problem will not only not make problem go away, but instead lead to an even smaller, insufficiently trained applicant pool to choose from.
Olson states, there are very different schools of thought when addressing this issue. It raises some interesting questions regarding the definition of educational administration, the inability for many to perform the demanding tasks needed to fulfill the requirements of the job and seeks to find a dialogue which might lead to possible solutions. This argument provides educators an opportunity to critically analyze school administration and leadership from a variety of perspectives. One argument is that key administrators are coming under increasing fire to provide adequate results in student performance and achievement. This pressure is driven in large part, as it is in the state of Massachusetts and across many states nationwide, by academic standards and accountability. Many would argue that this form of top-down reform would require administrators and school leaders to become “instructional leaders” rather than simply building managers. Building management must therefore take a back seat, if schools are to become successful in training and educating today’s modern student. However, it is unclear how to precisely define the term “instructional leader”. There are those currently involved in education reform who believe that many of the problems faced by American schools will require solutions by the next generation of administrators.
Does the future of American education require that these leaders be educators in order to successfully do the job? Are we placing unreasonable expectations of administrators? Does the solution require that schools place a larger emphasis on business management? One thing is certain, public and private schools across the United States are seeking and actively recruiting candidates which can fulfill all these responsibilities. The modern day administrator needs to have the business and management knowledge of a corporate CEO, the savvy of a seasoned fund raiser and the experience of being a veteran educator. It is difficult to imagine effective leadership in our schools coming from someone who has never stepped foot in a classroom. Olson also places part of the blame on the preparation and leadership – training programs currently training administrators for the job. There are a portion of leading educators and policy makers that believe senior level administrators being “pumped out” of these training programs are lacking on-the-job experience as well as a deep knowledge and understanding of instruction. These leaders are not only going to be expected to do the job of “instructional leader”, but are going to face the reality of management. In my humble opinion, one this is for certain, the future success of American education will demand effective, innovative and visionary leadership in order to fully embrace and address the challenges of education in the 21st century
