Learning for

Leadership
A Critical Analysis of
Leadership Style
Abstract

Leadership styles are varied and can include many different approaches, one leader may exhibit
many different leadership styles in their roles within the school. The purpose and focus of the
following paper is a critical analysis of one leader within a school environment. A detailed interview
was conducted with the individual and an analysis of this follows, I then have put forward
recommendations based on this leader’s assessment of their own view of leadership and how they
put it into practice on a daily basis.

Outline of Contents

• Introduction
• Contextual and leader characteristics
• Interview Process
• Analysis
• Recommendations
• Conclusion
• References

Introduction

Leadership within education has been a key area of interest for teachers and is believed to be the
second most important factor when it comes to impacting upon learning as Leithwood states
‘Leadership is second only to classroom practice in terms of impact on student outcomes.’
(Leithwood et al., 2010, p…?) There are many different styles of leadership in education and one
leader may have a varied approach to different situations and challenges.

Contextual and leader characteristics

The individual I interviewed is a Head of Department and is also a senior teacher within a large
Catholic Grammar School; he has been a HOD for ten years and has been on the SLT for five years.
The dichotomy of his role means he has an extensive and varied insight into leadership within the
school, I began the interview by asking about his personal biographical background and asked him to
outline what steps he took towards leadership. He is 34 years old so is relatively young to be on the
senior leadership team, he also became HOD at the age of 24 so was in middle management from
nearly the beginning of his career. He outlined that he took advantage of many opportunities that
came his way to build up experience and knowledge, he felt this was essential in developing him as a
leader. This individual places emphasis on the importance of collaboration and seeking out
opportunities to innovate so if there was an opportunity to take on a new role within the school he
pursued it. Over the years he has had many different roles within the school such as: shared
education co-ordinator, literacy co-ordinator, e-safety co-ordinator and deputy head of department.

Interview Process

The interview took place over three sessions, I recorded the interview and also took down notes. I
asked a variety of open and closed questions to stimulate discussion about the topic of leadership.

Analysis

After discussing the individual’s background I began by asking how he would define leadership. He
replied that it is a difficult concept to define similarly to Bennis (1989) who argued that leadership is
like beauty-it is hard to define but you know it when you see it (Hoy and Miskel, p. 427) He discussed
the importance of having a ‘vision’ and identifying areas for development and working towards
them, the need to have the skills to put these ideas in place and the personality or charisma to ‘bring
people with you and get them on board.’ From this response I can deduce that this individual leader
adheres more towards the skills approach view of leadership as referenced in Northouse ‘Certain
knowledge and skills are needed for effective leadership’ (Northouse, 2013) His response to the
defining leadership question very much emphasised knowledge and skills.

Interestingly he also mentioned traits in terms of leadership; words such as ‘charisma’, ‘personality’,
‘motivation’, and ‘confidence.’ As a young teacher working under his directives and leadership I can
clearly see many of these traits in him as an individual and also a leader. In regards to his personality
he is confident, emotionally mature, an extrovert, has a high level for stress tolerance and integrity.
Confidence allowed him to pursue the many different leadership roles he has occupied throughout
his teaching career it has also meant he been very successful in implementing his ideas. He also
stressed the importance of being a resilient leader, describing how you must have the ability to take
criticism and encounter difficulties in pursuit of your vision. These core views on effective leadership
link to what Hoy and Miskel write about personality traits ‘self- confident leaders are more likely to
set high goals for themselves and their followers, to attempt difficult tasks, and to persist in the face
of problems and defeats.’ (Hoy and Miskel, p.430) Leadership Theory also expresses this idea of
leadership traits, Northouse states that the following are traits to possess to be viewed in a leader:
intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability (Northouse, 2013.)

Motivation is another key aspect of how he described leadership. He is obviously a highly motivated
individual and this was clear when he discussed his biographical background; seeking out skills and
knowledge, pursuing promotion and completing a masters degree alongside his teaching. Again this
is supported by Hoy and Miskel ‘…highly motivated leaders are likely to be more effective than
individuals with low expectations, modest goals and limited self-efficacy.’ (Hoy and Miskel, p.431)

Continuing to discuss what leadership was we discussed how leadership is not about one particular
person but is shared or distributed; he talked about the importance of everyone being a leader
within their own role, for example, teachers are leaders within their own classrooms. As a classroom
teacher within his department I can see clearly how he implements this vision of shared or
distributed leadership; I have been given support and mentoring meaning I am now in a position to
take on some of the responsibilities within the department and expand in my role as a subject co-
ordinator. In terms of his leader behaviour I would assess it to be a mixture of both task and people-
orientated as defined by Yukl ‘…two basic dimensions of leader behaviour: task–oriented, people-
oriented. (Yukl in Hoy and Miskel, 2013) He is highly focused on achieving goals and raising
standards academically within the department but also very skilled at providing just enough
professional or emotional support, asking for input and praising. The external environment has also
played a key role in his leadership style given that the school in which we work is very stable, well
established and has many aspects of successful teaching and learning in place. This also links in with
research ‘in stable environments, task orientated behaviour should be used more frequently than
change-oriented behaviour…increasing efficiency and maintaining stable operations.’ (Hoy and
Miskel, 2013).

I can also observe how this leader has adopted change-oriented behaviour when necessary, he
discussed the importance of innovation and risk-taking; having courage and daring to do things
differently. In my time working in the department I have witnessed this behaviour in terms of
changing schemes of work and different texts that we have decided to teach. He also discussed the
importance of influencing the environment both within school and the community and I can see how
he has achieved this in several ways. Pupils in the Drama department are linked with the community
through performances and charity work, for example, the school musical and the invitation to come
into school to spectate. Sponsorship was also essential to the success of ventures such as the school
musical so it was therefore important for the leader to secure this funding; this was achieved
through coffee mornings and different meetings with the local business community. This is linked to
what Hoy and Miskel say about environment ‘effective management of the external environment
can mean the difference between a high- and low-performing… school’. (Hoy & Miskel, p. 269).

I asked the interviewee about different challenges they have encountered within their leadership
career. He discussed how becoming a senior leader had given him a wider outlook on the school
than he previously had as a subject leader. For example, a few years ago there were only a few
pupils wanting to study Drama at A-Level and the decision was taken that the Drama class would not
run. After the examination results came out several more pupils came forward wanting to take on
the subject meaning there could have been a healthy class size. As a subject leader he was
disappointed there would be no class studying to A Level but as a senior leader he could see how it
was the needs and demands of the school as a whole that took priority over an individual subject.

He also outlined the challenges of working with different personalities and characters within a
department. Some individuals within departments may have other areas of responsibility in the
school and therefore may be more focused on that role as opposed to their teaching and
responsibilities in their department, for example if they are a head of year or working in behaviour
support. Schools are open social systems and therefore consist of interdependent parts, which
interact with each other and the external environment, the challenge of being a leader in an open
social system is that individuals are interdependent in achieving their outcomes, you need each
person to do their job efficiently to meet short and long term goals. He highlighted the difficulty that
can often arise due to micro politics within a department or school, as Hoy and Miskel outline
‘...behaviour in educational organisations is a function of the interaction of structure, individuals,
culture, and micro-politics as constrained by environmental forces.’ The leader needs to be able to
read and interpret the unofficial social structure that has informal norms, values, sentiments and
informal communication patterns. I can see that as a leader he is able to very successfully negotiate
this potential mine field to ensure the smooth operation of both a department and pastoral year
group. For example, when reviewing schemes of work, he was able to partner up colleagues he knew
could work well together and get the desired outcome. Within my school environment I see very
clearly the informal organisation; there is division into cliques, grapevine communication and
informal leadership and I can also see how this would be very difficult to tackle from a leadership
perspective. As Diefenbach and Sillince write ‘Despite all change towards flatter and postmodern
organisations, hierarchical order is quite persistent - though less formal and more subtle (informal).
(Diefenbach & Sillince, 2011) This is very apparent to me as a young teacher in many ways for
example, on prize nights the youngest members of staff take on the duties that keep them the latest
at school, they are also expected to take on more extra- curricular responsibilities; these are the
cultures and norms within my school.

We also discussed the challenge to keep individuals motivated, as a leader in a school you may be
dealing with a member or staff that has been there longer than you and are feeling dissatisfied and
disillusioned. When linking this with Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory it is the hygienes such
as: policy and administration, working conditions and interpersonal relations that can cause
dissatisfaction whereas motivators such as responsibility, achievement and enhancement are likely
to be more motivating factors. We discussed the approach of shared or participative leadership as a
means of keeping staff motivated and I can see that he adopts this approach in his leadership style,
for example at department meetings, each member of the department is given different
responsibilities for example creating or photocopying exams, or being sent to different agreement
trials and feeding back to the department. This is a highly effective aspect of his leadership style.

Our discussion about working with individuals and open social systems led to him emphasising the
importance of emotional intelligence. As Hargreaves & Fink outline ‘Emotion is an indispensable
source of human energy. Positive emotion creates energy; Negative emotion saps it. (Hargreaves &
Fink, 2006, as cited in Brennan & Mac Ruairc, 2011, 135)’ A successful leader must be emotionally
intelligent in regard to both staff members and pupils as teaching and learning are an emotionally
laden processes. Emotional intelligence is ‘the capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions
to enhance thinking. It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate
emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to
reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth (Mayer & Salovey,
1997 in Mayer et al., 2004, p. 197). I have witnessed this leader demonstrate emotional intelligence
on several occasions and we also discussed this at length, he emphasised it was important to know
for example when might be the best time to ask a colleague for some work, being able to read for
example if they were very stressed in regards to workload and approaching them at another time. A
colleague in school was recently bereaved and because of his emotional intelligence he was able to
see when the individual was struggling, perhaps needed classes covered or to go home early.

I asked about the challenge of a school culture in terms of leadership and we discussed the
importance for a leader to be able to interpret organisational culture within an individual school, he
highlighted the difficulties faced in stepping into a leadership role when coming from another school
or another role. He discussed that the climate within a school was something, as a leader, you could
have more of an immediate effect on. He highlighted the perception of Drama within the school
before he took on the role of head of department, within the school it was perceived as more of a
subject for girls and not something boys would study, he worked hard to change this climate in
several ways. He looked at the schemes of work and made changes to try and make the topics more
interesting to boys, he contacted outside professionals working within the industry to come into the
school and discuss careers within Drama, including a male working as a professional actor. He also
invited past pupils in to discuss the merits of studying Drama. These all had an impact on the culture
of the school and how the subject was viewed within it.
Recommendations

In terms of recommendations on this particular individual’s leadership style he is highly effective and
inspiring in his approach to leadership. Day to day leadership within a school will present different
challenges and how the leader deals with these challenges will all be context specific; what I have
learned from this leader is that a mixture of leadership styles are essential in ensuring successful
outcomes for both staff and pupils. This links in to what Southworth states about leadership, ‘the
capacity to recognise and decipher the peculiar blend of contexts is what enables a leader to be truly
effective with any given issue. (Southworth, 2004b as cited in Lewis and Murphy, 2008, p134.) The
key aspects of his leadership style include setting direction and developing people. One
recommendation would be perhaps to distribute leadership more across the department and being
able to trust other individuals with important tasks, this would allow for further development of
leadership capacity within the department.

Conclusion

The process of interviewing a leader about their leadership and management style was very
enlightening, leadership style is influenced by many different factors, some are very obvious and
deliberate whilst others are more subtle and intrinsic. One particular aspect of the interview struck
me as essential and highly important; when asked why he wanted to become a leader he stated he
wanted to make the learning experience better for the pupils and when asked about one of the
successes of his leadership he mentioned the outcomes of an inspection report where the inspector
mentioned ‘the soaring ambition within the classroom for the pupils’ and ‘the well managed and
inspirational teaching.’ This stood out for me in the interview because that is essentially the desired
outcome of educational leadership, the pupil outcomes and links back to Leithwood’s assertion that
leadership is second only to classroom practice in terms of impact on student outcomes. (Leithwood
et al., 2010)

Appendix

Questions asked:

What is your personal biographical background?

Why did you become a leader?

What is the purpose of a leader?

How do you view leadership?

What experiences shaped you as a leader?

What are your main leadership styles?

What makes a good leader?/What makes a bad leader?

How do you communicate with people within the organisation?

How do you seek to get people to work together?

Are there any specific beliefs or assumptions informing your behaviour?

What obstacles or challenges have you faced to date and how have you learned from these?

What aspects of leadership do you enjoy the most?

What impact has your leadership had on individuals and the organisation?

What lessons can be learned from your leadership experience?

What advice would you give a young teacher regarding pursuing a role in leadership?

What do you think is the best mix of leader behaviours?

How do you deal with micro politics within the organisation as a leader?

How has the climate and the culture of the school impacted on your leadership style?

How has the external environment impacted on you as a leader?

Do you think formal school structure encourage or stifle teacher leadership?

Do you think emotional intelligence is important for effective leadership?

Is distributed leadership desirable?

Do you view leadership as a form of learning?

How do you deal with conflict in the workplace?

Can you give an example of when you have resolved conflict and describe the steps you took to do
so?
References

Brennan,J. and Mac Ruairc, G. (2011) 'Taking it personally: examining patterns of emotional practice
in leading primary school in the Republic of Ireland', International journal of leadership in education
, 14 (2), pp. 129-150.

Diefenbach, T., and Sillince, J.A.A. (2011) Formal and informal hierarchy in different types of
organisation , Organisation Studies 32(11) edn., : 1515-1517.

Hoy, W.K and Miskel, C.G. (2013) Educational administration: theory, research and practice , 9th
edn., New York: NY: McGraw- Hill.

Leithwood (2010) School leaders influence on student learning: the four paths , 2nd edn., London :
Sage.

Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P. and Caruso, D.R. (2004) 'Emotional intelligence: Theory, findings and
implications ', Psychological Inquiry , 15(3), pp. 197-215.

Northouse, P.G (2013) Leadership: theory and practice , 6th edn., Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

Southworth, G. (2009) B. Davies The essentials of school leadership, 2nd edn., London : SAGE.