I have chosen to base my leadership diagram on my current school rather than the school I will be starting at in a few weeks as I am more familiar with the structure and leadership styles of this school. My diagram is based on an Independent K-12 school but I have chosen to only represent the secondary part of the campus. Even though the school is governed by a Board I have chosen not to include this in order to keep the design simple and uncomplicated.
The Principal sits at the top of my hierachical structure and her leadership style would be best described as a Transformational style of leadership as her role sits above the day-to-day operations of the school. Her role is transformational as she tends to share her vision and mission for the school, is responsible for strategic planning and setting long-term goals for the school but does not typically implement these goals or govern the development of strategies to achieve the overall vision and mission of the school.
Below the Principal in my diagram sits the Deputy Principal. Directly below this level sits the Executive Team. The Deputy Principal, Head of Teaching and Learning and the Head of Curriculum would be best described as Instructional Leaders in my school’s structure as they direct and manage from the top whilst also modelling best practice to staff and students. The roles of the Deputy, Head of Teaching and Learning as well as the Head of Curriculum is to lead learning, manage staff and curriculum and to assess the needs of staff and students to ensure that the goals set by the Principal are achieved.
The Pastoral Leaders are also part of the Executive Team at my school, but I have identified their leadership style as being more Situational as the very nature of their job means that they need to adapt and change their leadership style to not only be appropriate for different situations but also for their different followers. They need to use a different leadership style and demonstrate different leadership attributes depending on whether they are dealing with teachers, parents or school students and depending on the complexity of each individual situation.
Below the Executive level I have placed the role of Teacher Librarian on the same level as the Heads of Departments. Both are instrumental in ensuring that practical measures are implemented to achieve the goals and vision set out by the Principal and improve student learning and teacher development. I have identified the role of the teacher librarian at my school as being a servant leader. Her role is to put others’ needs and best interests ahead of her own ambition and position at the school. The teacher librarian is very much a middle leader in this organisation as she serves as a link between the curriculum requirements, the overarching academic goals and mission of the Principal and Executive level and the teacher and student body. Her role is to collaborate with other teachers and members of the Executive to resource the curriculum and improve pedagogy in order to support teachers and student learning. The TL also directly serves the needs of students.
Here is the link to my Canva diagram
Feedback from Krystal on my diagram below;
Hi @Kristin Upton, another strong start. Placement all looks good and your explanation shows your understanding. I’d encourage you to further reduce the words in the diagram – labels really should only have one to two words to reduce visual clutter! As with other diagrams, I’d also encourage you to think strategically about how colour can be used to group things or represent how things go across the diagram. Hope this is helpful 😀 K