Transformational Leadership

I’ve digested a lot of information during the past two weeks of JHU’s Effective Leadership class. Of all the theories of leadership we’ve studied, transformational leadership stands out as the most natural style for my personality. This is not heady stuff we’re discussing. It’s about being a person of integrity who is passionate for a cause. It’s about a deep commitment to bringing out the very best in individuals. It’s about respecting other’s ideas and beliefs and pushing the team to act in the best interest of the group. James MacGregor Burns defined it best in his book, Leadership, when he described it as a process by which, “. . .leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation” (p.20).

A transformational leadership style will thrive in a learning environment even during deep shifts in educational theory and practice. This hinges, of course, on the commitment of the school administrator to resist a transactional leadership style. This is no easy task considering the enormous burden they carry to be a high performing school defined entirely by scores on a state mandated test. Educational leadership expert, Kenneth Leithwood, maintains that principals should resist transactional leadership, “. . .on the quite likely grounds that many of those to whom you are accountable don’t care what you do as long as it is ethical and gets results” (p.193). A community of educators led in a transformational way will feel empowered to be agents of change; their experience and expertise will be tapped in order to develop curriculum and practice that improve student motivation and performance. Guided by an articulated vision, they will strive to constantly learn, and will adapt their practices based on the needs of their students in a changing society. There will be no status quo, but the entire faculty will be encouraged to innovate and create as prompted by their continued learning. The administrator will not need to provide extrinsic motivators as teachers will be intrinsically moved by their commitment to the vision, the students and each other. This is a powerful environment in which to operate.

In today’s technological society, “change” can no longer be a dirty word. It must be embraced with gusto by anyone who wishes to be relevant in the world of education. We need to move beyond the phrase “technology integration”. This idea suggests that our old curriculum should be infused with some technology in order to give it an update. In reality, our curriculum should be replaced. We need to start over if we want to prepare our students to be competitors for jobs that don’t even exist at the moment. In Curriculum 21, Heidi Hayes Jacobs gives practical ways to begin making the shift. When students have access on the web to anything they’d like to know within seconds, the knowledge we dispel as teachers becomes useless. Instead we need to focus on the skills and dispositions our students need to sift through the information. They must be critical thinkers who can communicate, problem solve and create. In a learning organization with a transformational leader at the helm, students and teachers alike are on a journey of exploration and discovery. In this culture of questioning and collaborating, there is no limit to what the community can accomplish!