By Вени Марковски | Veni Markovski – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
I write this on the day that Australia has its seventh Prime Minister in 10 years (Kimmorley, 24 August 2018)! I cannot help but think what our education system would be like if staff could overthrow principals at the same rate. Schools, like our country, need leaders who have vision for improvement. People who can communicate this vision effectively. One who can rally a team to support the vision. But most importantly never forget why they are there in the first place, or what is their core business.
Principals’ core business is not only to ensure that the managerial aspect of their role is smooth, but is predominantly to ensure that their staff, teachers, are equipped with the best resources possible to ensure that students become lifelong learners and skilled 21st century citizens.
No one person can do this alone. It requires a team effort and a team on the same page. As members of that team teacher librarians have a duty to participate in this shared leadership. Adopting a servant leadership style the teacher librarian can improve the culture of the school (Black, 2010). Through supporting school programs, initiating change or running school based professional development, school librarians can help lead staff to meeting the school’s shared vision and goals.
We have all been in work places where we are surprised at the lack of leadership qualities that our supposed leaders show. If this is the case in your school than it is even more important to demonstrate your leadership skills. Through servant leadership you can help guide the staff by leading from below and help the school library become the beacon of light, the port in the storm, from the chaos that is a school without strong leadership (Boylan, 2018).
Now more than ever we need our leaders to remember why they are there in the first place. Imagine if our next Prime Minister adopted a servant leadership style to his ministry, what changes would there be?
Black, G. L. (2010). Correlational analysis of servant leadership and school climate. Journal of Catholic Education, 13(4), 437-466. doi:10.15365/joce.1304032013
Boylan, M. (2018). Enabling adaptive system leadership:Teachers leading professional development. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(1), 86-106. doi:10.1177/1741143216628531
Kimmorley, S. (24 August 2018). Australia has now had seven prime ministers in just 10 years — here’s who they are and how long they were in office. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/list-of-australian-prime-ministers-2018-8