ERIC ED359630: Leadership Styles.

70 Pages·1993·1.1 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 359 630
EA 025 066
AUTHOR
Lewis, Anne
TITLE
Leadership Styles.
INSTITUTION
American Association of School Administrators,
Arlington, Va.
REPORT NO
ISBN-0-87652-187-2
PUB DATE
93
NOTE
70p.
AVAILABLE FROM
American Association of School Administrators, 1801
N. Moore Street, Arlington, VA 22209-9988 (Stock No.
21-00375: $9.95 plus postage).
PUB TYPE
Guides
Non-Classroom Use (055)
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Educational Administration; Educational Change;
Elementary Secondary Education; *Leadership;
*Leadership Qualities; *Leadership Responsibility;
*Leadership Styles; Management Development;
Professional Development; School Administration
ABSTRACT
This book provides a personal look at the styles of
several school leaders, probes the literature on school leadership,
and explores some of the instruments designed to measure leadership
style. The introduction explains the need to change leadership styles
as education changes. Chapter 1 examiner, the redefinition of
leadership roles and the role of leadership styles in the changing
educational system. The second chapter describes twc
theories--leadership as management and situational leadership.
Leadership most effective for rural schools and in reform contexts
are described. Instruments to measure leadership styles are discussed
in the third chapter, which provides a checklist for selecting a
useful measure. Chapter 4 describes leadership roles that will see
the greatest change in the future and offers resources for more
information. Five figures and chapter endnotes are included.
Appendices contain information about 28 leadership styles
instruments. (LMI)
***********************************************************************
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
***********************************************************************
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Copyright © 1993, American Association of School Administrators
ISBN No.: 0-87652-187-2
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 92-073479
AASA Stock No.: 21.00375
AASA is an Equal Opportunity Employer
PREFACE
1
INTRODUCTION
2
LEADING CHANGES, CHANGING LEADERS
3
Leaders in Transition
3
Enter Leadership Styles
CHAPTER 1
4
TEARING DOWN WALLS
4
Escape From the Iron Cage
6
Four Critical Skills
Big School Picture
7
10
Wanted: Systemic Thinkers
13
The Role of Leadership Styles
CHAPTER 2
16
THEORIES AND SITUATIONS
16
Leadership Versus Management
16
Different Dimensions
17
Function, Style, or Traits
21
Situational Leadership
28
When the Situation Is Reform
28
Reformers As Leaders
CHAFFER 3
34
WIIAT IS MY STYLE?
34
Instruments To Measure Leadership
40
Some Caveats About Styles Measurements
CHAPTER 4
44
BEYOND TINKERING: THE FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP
45
New Breed/New Skills
45
Styling the Training
46
Mastering Fate
48
Where To Learn About Styles
PROFILES
Deborah McGriff
5
Richard Wallace
8
Saul Yanofsky
17
Terrence Deal
22
Peter Senge
25
Tom Sergiovanni
27
Michael Ward
30
Patricia Bolanos
31
Marilyn Willis
41
Jerry Parker
46
Thomas Payzant and
Bertha Pendleton
51
SIDEBARS
Leading Urban Systems Through Change
10
No Autocrats Allowed
11
Wake Up, Mr. Chips
15
The Rural Leadership Scene
26
The Pluses of an Assessment Center
39
Making Preparation Meaningful
50
CONCLUSION
54
ENDNOTES
55
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
57
APPENDIX
LEADERSHIP STYLES INSTRUMENTS
58
the quality of our leadership. Of course,
As a nation, our future depends on
the content. They are people of substance.
true leaders display a mastery of
styles.
In addition, the best, most effective, leaders also have their own unique
staff
How we go about doing things communicates a powerful message to
and community. It also sends signals to people who want styles to communi-
leadership styles is one key to sound
cate with us. That's why understanding
leadership.
"analytical:'
The world is filled with people who could be described as
"humanistic/encouraging," "driver-expressive," or "judgmental': One f.-..-yle is not
having
necessarily better than another. In fact, many organizations take pride in
styles of leadership.
a balance of people representing many
look at the
This book, Leadership Styles, provides an up-close-and-personal
district
styles of several school leaders, probes the literature and local school
designed to measure style.
practice, and explores some of the instruments
What this publication has to say is an essential building block in our ongoing
leaders for each and every school and school system
quest to ensure outstanding
in our nation.
American Association of School Administrators
ti
7
L
INTRODI CHO\
CHANGING LEADERS
"Ilithin five
ver since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt,
1 the nature of leadership has been a subject of
years, incluse
debate, reflectionand introspection. A leadership
leadership will
style, or the "way a leader leads:' according to re-
be the
searchers Stuart Smith and Philip Piele, on the other
mainstream.
hand, is a contemporary invention, growing out of
:1 school
psychology theories of the 1900s.
administrator
What differentiates leadership skills from leader-
ship styles? Unfortunately, few agree on a definition
unable to function
of styles. Instead, leadership qualities take shape as
this li
ay will not
a function of questions. Can leadership styles be
sunlit."
acquired, or are they determined by personality? Are
they present always, or do they arise according to
Parker. Supermtvildcm.
I am
In.
the situation? Is one style better than another? Can
any two people have the same style? What factors
influence styles?
After reviewing much literature on this subject, styles are as difficult to
pin down as mercury. On one hand, Leaders appear to he a sum of many
skills. They must be efficient, diplomatic. articulate, facilitative. Styles, on the
other hand, are the painting created by the brush strokes of skills. Leaders
may he dominating and authoritarian or inclusive and democratic. Leadership
styles often are described in terms of behaviors. They seem closer to the skin,
in a way more a part of one's inherent makeup than a skill, which might
he sought after and acquired. Researchers differ on this point as well, however.
In any case, leaders' styles are prismatic; they may change from situation
to situation, or he described completely differently by various individuals with
whom they interact. In fact, when trying to identify one's style it is important
to look at various perspectives, including one's own.
Over the last decade, leadership skills and leadership styles have come to-
gether as two sides of the same coin. Thus, it is impossible to entirely separate
skills and styles. Gray areas will inevitably surface in this hook, as they do
in
life.
Leaders in Transition
"Leadership is the
ability to influence,
Today, the world is changing in the way our insti-
to focus the acts and
tutions function, requiring leaders to assess their
thoughts of others.
strengths and understand what qualities they need
Historically,
.1 leader must have
to guide their institutions effectively.
a constituency
leaders were controllers who managed staff who fol-
1 think the
lowed rules without questioning. Today's leaders, how-
deci-
ever, often are called upon to facilitate group
characteristics are
sions and oversee the "big picture:'
the same at every
Though changes in the business sector are more
lei el charisma,
likely to be in the public eye, transformations in
confidence, courage,
the public sector often follow. Arguably, no institu-
some tolerance for
tion is more heavily involved in a management up-
.1'm
ambiguity.
.
heaval than public education. Managing more than
not sure how much
80,000 buildings in more than 15,000 operating units
you can train these
of government, K-I2 public educators alone repre-
qualities, but you
sent a substantial leadership core.
can support them
Because school leaders affect a very large per-
Kith information
chang-
centage of our population, their responses to
and etperience."1
ing roles and responsibilities not only may reflect
mutter
k 7.
might partially
(
on public education itself, but also
[hr
Pi)/11)11
determine how well other elements of the public
Educators could
sector reorganize their institutions.
leadership
be in the best position to lead on leadership, and self-awareness of
styles may help guide the quest.
Enter Leadership Styles
This hook attempts to answer a number of questions, including:
What combinations of skills and styles are needed for effective leadership?
How do those in charge analyze their strengths and needs?
personal styles?
it more important to understand the situation or
Is
1 -low do individual styles translate to day-to-day leadership?
How do leadership styles affect others?
3
TEARING
CHAPTER
DOWN WALLS
John W. Gardner, in his book-length essay, LeadershiN compares the example
of Moses with the environment of businesses and institutions today. He
notes that the kind of leadership needed now in highly complex, bureaucratic
systems bears little resemblance to the Old Testament leader's once-heralded
feat. Today's leader might easily become lost in a desert sandstorm of change.
School administrators are familiar with the literature on how public education
copied the leadership and organizational style of businesses earlier in this century.
Their own training probably reflected the emphasis on management skills and
centralization, derived from the model identified by industrial scientist Franklin
Taylor, so aptly applied by Henry Ford and the assembly line. Taylorism breaks
down work into discrete assignments; a worker is responsible only for his or
her piece of the action. Management is very separate from the "shop floor."
Escape From the Iron Cage
American society was warned by economists and sociologists as far back
as the late 1940s that it may not like the "iron cage" it was building, with
its specialized division of labor and aloof leadership. Yet, not until Japan emerged
as a formidable competitor and with a totally different way of organizing for
productivity did businesses start to reexamine the nature of and structure for
leadership.
OPTIMIZING THE SYSTEM
Ironically, Japan's mentor for reorganizing production is an American once
spurned in his own countryW. Edwards Deming. His "quality" movement,
or versions of it (he now criticizes the iabel Total Quality Management as
being too superficial) guide some of the changes in leadership and organization
taking place in American businessand, to some extent, in American schools.
To Deming, the traditional system of top -down, extrinsically rewarded manage-
ment destroys initiative and self-esteem. Instead, he says, "the job of management
in education, industry, and government is the optimization of a system, not
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