Session Information
26 SES 06 B, Teacher Leadership and Teachers' Dealings with Educational Leadership
Paper Session
Contribution
The leadership provided by teachers and their active involvement in educational reform are vital for achieving a comprehensive systematic change towards educational improvement. Thus, it is very important that, in times of reform, teachers be provided with opportunities to take on leadership roles within the schools' organizational hierarchy.
Teachers can demonstrate leadership in many ways, through both their informal roles of in-class leader and their formal roles in specific administrative positions (Angelle & DeHart, 2011; Lieberman & Friedrich, 2010). Leadership roles enhance teachers’ desire to cooperate with management and with colleagues and increase their feelings of satisfaction, motivation, and loyalty towards the school, while affording them personal and professional growth (Fang, 2013). In-school leadership positions include positions such as department head, subject coordinator, team leader, mentor, coach, staff developer, committee chair, consulting teacher, and master teacher (Angelle & DeHart, 2011).
Although career progression is a complex issue that depends on many factors, it is important to remember that, while not everyone wishes to progress, people tend to prefer jobs in which they are entrusted with important tasks, and which provide professional development that can lead to career progression (Vardi, 1980). Vardi (1980) and later Baruch and Vardi (2016) present an integrated model of "career movement within an organization" (Organizational Career Model, OCM). The model compares the career world to port traffic, with departure and entrance gates. Career movement is determined by people's mobility, desires and aspirations, and whether they already hold formal positions in the organization.
The desire to assume an administrative leadership role within a school depends strongly on a teacher's sense of empowerment, which is an interactive process that occurs between individuals and their environment (Avidov-Ungar, O., Friedman, I., & Olshtain., 2014; Hargreaves, 2005). Empowerment manifests in the transition from a position of helplessness to a feeling of personal-psychological capability, during which the person gains the ability to cope with the effects of the environment (Bogler & Somech, 2004). Empowerment means believing that one has the ability to create and shape values, to consciously and significantly influence events, and enables one to function from a sense of professional confidence and high capability (Bogler, 2005; Collinson et al., 2009). It increases a person’s ability to perform a task, affording that person the power to delegate authority and responsibility, to nurture the ability to take decisions, and to perform tasks as an act of personal will.
A feeling of empowerment is associated with higher job satisfaction (Edwards, Green, & Lyons, 2002). It enhances workers’ professionalism, and helps them take responsibility for their own involvement in the decision-making process (Bogler, 2005). In a school context, empowerment reduces dependency and enables growth and school organizational renewal (Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003), as well as developing content knowledge, professional wisdom, and psychological strengths (Fang, 2013).
Based on the perception of the social status of the teacher, the aim of this research is to analyze the relationship between teachers' professional role, their sense of empowerment, and their attitudes towards in-school leadership promotion, in both the personal and the organizational dimensions. This research focusses on leadership in the context of administrative, managerial, and/or team-leadership roles (i.e., in the context of a vertical hierarchy), rather than on leadership vis-à-vis pupils and their learning and development.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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