Paper
Transformational Leadership Style in the Educational Sector: An Empirical Study of Corporate Managers and Educational Leaders
Published Jan 1, 2013 · M. Onorato
The Academy of Educational Leadership Journal
90
Citations
19
Influential Citations
Abstract
INTRODUCTION In an era of accountability, our school systems are facing severe challenges to meet bottom line results while external pressures from federal, state and local mandates are compelling educational leaders to drive enhanced student achievement. With the addition of charter school choice and new local laws, fueled by the federal government's race to the top incentive model, educational leaders are now faced with leadership evaluations that will assess the accountability of overall performance of educational leaders. For example, New York State is currently assessing teacher-principal performance evaluations to qualify for federal grants to improve the quality of leadership and student performance in the classroom (Chen & Phillips, 2012). In this ever-changing era of accountability and performance, we find school leaders are now faced with the same managerial tasks that are practiced by managers and leaders of businesses in private industry. Some of these tasks include managing personnel, controlling budgets, setting strategic goals and collaborating with external forces that include parents, unions, community outreach groups, and also political constituents. The issue of managing for results takes upon a larger role in today's educational environment as educational leaders focus on the very managing skills that are practiced in private industry. To support the accountability--performance agenda, leadership proficiency has taken on a pivotal focus that can effect bottom line results. As society places more accountability on the educational sector, educational managers and leaders are being asked to perform as manages in private industry. Managerial tasks have relied upon a leadership framework to help achieve the overall tasks and duties of managing. To support the managerial paradigm and the leadership framework, most theorists have studied the transformational leadership style for environments that are subjected to significant change for bottom line results. Education in today's business context is an industry that comprises of elementary, secondary and post secondary institutions. Revenues for public elementary and secondary schools amount to $525 Billion for the school year 2011-2012 (National Center for Educational Statistics). In addition, the post secondary education segment represented 19.7 million students for both public and private institutions, with a per student average annual tuition cost of $32,184 for private and $4,751 for public institutions (Department of Education, 2012). By industry comparison, according to the US Census Bureau, revenues (including service, insurance, and other items) for new car dealers in the US totaled an estimated $553 billion in 2010. According to the Government's BLS statistical data, the education industry can be considered the country's second largest industry, accounting for about 13.5 million jobs in 2008 with a total estimated worth of $630 to $680 billion (Light, 1998). So why do we consider the leadership in this industry as a representation of teachers who only focus students' assessment, who do not practicing the skills of a typical business management leader? CEOs of corporations play key roles to interact with their followers for organizational transformation and innovation. This emphasis has been evident over the last twenty years where more adaptive leadership styles can respond to the rapid changes in which corporate CEOs are confronted (Bass et al., 2003). In a study of 50 corporate CEOs, performed by Jung et al., (2008) they have concluded that a positive relationship exists between a CEO 's transformational leadership style and organizational innovation. Whereas, within the educational sector there is still limited research which indicate a consistent positive relationship between leadership styles and performance outcomes, particularly conceptualizing the transformational leadership style as the construct (Leithwood et al. …
Transformational leadership style is crucial for educational leaders to effectively manage personnel, budgets, and strategic goals, while fostering innovation and enhancing student achievement in the face of accountability pressures.
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