Leadership Plan
Step one: creating a Vision
An effective educational leader is in charge of developing a vision for his or her organization. To see changes in my school as a principal, I should come up with a clear vision that will guide leadership towards an improvement. Readings assert that a vision is a vague dream with the purpose or goals of an organization. Having a clear vision in my school will help create consistency of purpose throughout. In this case, the school vision is to promote a collaborative learning environment that will impact better outcomes. I believe as a leader, committing myself to this vision and make followers believe in thorough communication, the overall school performance will improve as a result. The current management does not invest much in the idea of teamwork, and this will create a negative culture that not only discourages communication but degraded creativity. Studies inform that the development of a vision must emerge or evolve through dynamic interactions of members. Concerning that, as a leader, I should not develop a vision statement by myself without engaging stakeholders even though I am solely responsible for giving leadership for its creation. Also, I have to ensure the vision is in good form for the articulation of others. As such, I will encourage staff members, school boards, and members of parent committees to join forces to support the new vision.
The vision created will permeate our organization, connect people’s beliefs as well as values to collaborative behavior. According to studies, visions that are shared requires ongoing dialogues where people not only feel free to express ideas but learn to listen to others. In reflection of this, as a leader, the only way to this, my organization attains its vision is to consider the interests of people I am working with. Not only will I lead towards the vision, but also, I must listen to people’s ideas, contributions, and provide feedback where necessary. Out of active listening, I hope to get new insights into what is possible or need to be done for maximum transformation. Having a clear vision set, it is my role to communicate it to students, staff, faculty, and community leaders. Upon the vision, goals, objectives, and strategies will be set and established.
Step two: Conducting Needs Assessment
To get from one point to another, it requires a person to known where he or she is going as well as the starting point. In leadership, this requires an assessment of current practices. My great impact as an educational leader is to make a change, and this will require me a comprehensive need assessment that accurately gauges strength, weakness, and areas that need improvement. A needs assessment will comprise of survey data and school records. The survey should focus on essential areas of an organization like defining the school climate, understanding the instruction, engagement, current leadership, families, and community involvement. Tools that will help assess needs include student records or achievement data, a survey of students, classroom walkthrough data, parents, administrators, and teachers. Like researchers assert, some decision making relies on having a clear picture if facts, and that means I should not be afraid to face realities. The current situation in the school has ineffective communication with team members unwilling to collaborate. Decision making sometimes is hard because members are not on the same page.
Step three: Define Goals and Objectives.
Once I have a clear sense of where my organization is at the moment, it will be easy to begin mapping the strategy of progress to where the institution should be. The plan must include precise and measurable goals that will lead an organization into the path of success. For example, after integrating collaboration and encouraging strong as well as supportive teamwork, the overall goal is to have student performance improve by at least 20% after one school term. By the end of a year, educators will provide feedback, and qualitative information must show positive progress based on reviews. When assessing students’ needs, survey reports may indicate that some factors of student struggle include boredom, frustration, or overwhelmed by the pace of institution. To address such a problem with the new leadership approach, goals like the implementation of personalized learning will be formulated to meet leaners at the right level of instruction. Also, I would instruct educators to apply formative assessment approach to check student’s understanding before they advance to another topic.
Step four: Outlining Specific Action Steps
A common roadblock that can prevent the school from reaching success and attaining its vision is if the plan is not actionable. As a leader, I should be aware that a strong vision and goals will not be enough. Instead, I have to outline what is necessary to help achieve goals; otherwise, without specific actions, the plan will not work. One of the best action steps is making sure that my team understands well the need for change, the vision, and the role to partake in bringing success home. Using need assessment, for example, one of the observations for lack of better teamwork in school may be noted to be a lack of proper tools. As such, as a leader, I must provide supportive tools such as technological devices that keep teachers motivated and interactive at work.
Fifth step: Collaboration and Engaging Stakeholders.
The team realizes that, for an improvement to be notable and an organization attains successful leadership, support from teachers, parents, administrators, and students will be vital. Research shows that strategies that are adopted and developed collaboratively are easy to support. Along with this, I must listen to my constituents to stir a culture that will have people utilize the opportunity to be heard. Great leadership means having humility. In recent years, communication and working together with the school community have earned significant importance. Effective educational leaders understand the goal of school-community relationships and communicate with parents, teachers, or students consistently. In my leadership, I must acknowledge the value of collaborating with the community to achieve goals and objectives better. Keeping everyone close is an art to managing the situation as they arise.
How to Address Things as a Leader
As a leader, I will approach issues in a transformational manner, allow open dialogues using a democratic approach, support, and motivate team members in charismatic ways. After gathering a team together and acknowledge openly that there is an issue, I must ensure there is constant feedback and let important information that is necessary to make improvements. Typically, it is equally important that I should not make assumptions about the root cause of issues. Creating collaborative environments for everyone is a way to detect and respond to problems before they escalate. Excellent problem solving requires strategic thinking- the most vital skills that every leader should have. Transformational leaders, as one of the theories leadership, require possession of qualities like integrity, fairness, ability to support and recognize individuals and stir the emotions of people. Using a transformational approach, therefore, I will get people to look beyond self-interest and value the plan of working together. Transformational leadership is built by four different components, which include intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence. In this case, inspirational motivation applies since my school will already have a clear vision that I can articulate to followers. Working together with teachers and students, I will make them experience the same passion and motivation to fulfill set goals.
Achieving the engagement of followers is a commitment to leadership. Leaders in an organization have impacts, whether good or bad, and this influence individual engagement. My contribution in this area will be working closely with teachers are students to feel what they experience. Regularly, I will hold meetings with staff members and exchange ideas or provide support in areas they need help with. One way to improve engagement according to studies is through communication. Interacting with students, parents, or teachers, time to time will make them feel valued and as part of the large picture. Recognizing individual achievement on a team is very motivating, and it should be critical not to assume that people in the organization are aware of success. Within the organization, communication between leader and followers will be two way.
Effective leaders have strong knowledge of a wide range of tools to engage or interact with people and address people’s needs. They entail using a team-based approach to research and vet programs, such as the instructional approach. Another engagement tool I would use is goals whereby I would require teachers to set individual goals that align with the organizational objective to help highlight contributions. However, I anticipate challenges such as cultural or communication barriers within an organization that effectively acknowledge diversity. Working with large diversity sometimes can result in a conflict of interest since people have different personal values that may not match all together. Thus, as a leader, I must be ready for such an obstacle since leading a change is never smooth. However, the embedded core value of leadership will include open and honest relationships, pursuing growth and learning, embracing and driving change as well as building a positive team.
Overview
Working together is a success, and this should be the overall outcome of a leadership plan. Productive collaboration requires having purpose and skills for effectiveness. In other words, a team has to be clear on what or why it exists and must be provided with the ability to get work done—as such, providing training and development for teachers will be a vital strategy for better outcomes. Redefining the culture of the school so that educators can value working together will not be an easy task due to a long history of the culture of isolation. However, as a leader, I must lead towards confronting the inherent challenge and shape the beliefs or practices in the right approach. I will take such obstacles as an opportunity to work together and drive academic success. With time and commitment, the school will overcome its challenges and lay a new foundation of collaboration. The new leadership structure will revolve around academic teams, study groups, discipline-based groups, and the full faculty. For effective educational leadership will be attained once, I see teachers, students, and parents interact freely to meet school demands.