My previous post suggests a naivety when understanding and recognising the leadership qualities and traits evident in schools and in particular to my role as TL. Reading about leadership theories has developed and expanded my understanding of attributes that are evident in leadership styles.

Key leadership styles were identified as: situational, transactional, transformational, servant, distributed and instructional. Initially I wrestled with the task of trying to identify one leadership style that was evident in my school. Clearly, attributes and traits from many of these styles are evident and applied to various situations so that depending on the position of a staff member within any one school, multiple examples of leadership can be displayed.

It is clear that some traditional styles are evident in some schools, however, increasingly more transparent and transient styles are becoming the norm. Could this be a mark of change within educational standards and needs? Is it evidence of generational change occuring within our work place? Are the expectations of future workplaces demanding change in the learning environments of our students, and thus, creating a reevaluation of leadership styles within schools?

Leadership styles observed in my school, seemed to point to instructional and transformational. Instructional because the principal and executive team focus on the big picture and instructs/ guides staff to specific professional training and ultimtely makes decisions for the school community; and transformational because whilst instructional, members of the executive team do plan and set goals that classroom teachers can work towards and achieve in order to improve their work output.

But I wonder whether I have understood this all correctly. I see the TL as a transformational leader, paving the way for change, collaborating with colleagues, promoting new intiatives and building key teams with staff from different levels of leadership. A concept map I devised, illustrated such. However, feedback from markers suggest I perhaps need to reevaluate my understanding. Revisit descriptions, and critically analyse scenarios within the school. Perhaps instead, the TL is more of a servant style. A style where collaboration is important and serving the needs of teachers and executive teams are valued when resources and expert literacy knowledge is provided. It is interesting to note that discussions will always draw up various responses dependant on who you talk to and what aspect of the situation is being viewed. Clearly revisiting leadership theory and analysing a school situation would be of benefit to understanding how many layers of leadership can be present in one institution.