On completion of this module you will be able to;
Outcomes:
- To understand the role of the manager / principal of a pre-school
- To understand the role of a leader
- To explore personal aspects of leadership
“At the age of seven, a young boy and his family were forced out of their home. The boy had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother passed away. When he grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but had no education.
At 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. The same year, he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown.
Two years later, he tried for the post of speaker in his state legislature. He lost. At 31, he was defeated in his attempt to become an elector. By 35, he had been defeated twice while running for Congress. Finally, he did manage to secure a brief term in Congress, but at 39 he lost his re-election bid.
At 41, his four-year-old son died. At 42, he was rejected as a prospective land officer. At 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. Two years later, he lost the vice presidential nomination. At 49, he ran for Senate and lost again.
At 51, he was elected the President of the Unite States of America.
The man in question: Abraham Lincoln.”
T H I N K
What does this say about being a leader?
Below is a Job description for a manager principal for a local school.
Facilitate the Pre-School Programme Meetings.
Work together with the Pre-School staff and to ensure the proper use and supervision of volunteers and student teachers.
Create annual school calendar, class schedules and staff schedules to provide adequate coverage for meals, recess, outdoor play, bathroom breaks and staff breaks.
Manage the budget for the Pre-School Programme.
Attend and participate in meetings for Direct Services, All Staff, 1/1, Leadership Team and the Board of Directors when applicable.
Foster relationships with outside agencies for continued development of the Pre-School Program within the agency and to supplement and extend the school program for the children. Coordinate special programmes such as arts and culture, assemblies, Parent’s Night and Parent/Teacher conferences.
Keep abreast of current research through professional periodicals, professional development and conferences.
When you think of preschool employment you probably think of preschool teachers, but every pre-school employs a pre-school director or principal. Many pre-school directors begin their careers as pre-school teachers and work their way up to management. In most schools the principal is required to work as part of a team. This team is often made up of parents.
This “workload” includes the following;
Pre-school depend on consumers of their series in order to be successful. The consumers of pre-school services must feel confident that the school provides a useful service for a reasonable fee. The pre-school principal meets with parents to answer questions, give tours of the pre-school and “sells” the service the pre-school provides. Parents often come with a list of questions. The pre-school principal must think fast on her feet and put forward a positive image of the school.
Hiring Staff
The preschool director posts job openings and interviews potential teachers and other staff members. Hiring and firing also fall into the realm of the principals’ job duties.
The Pre-school principal must carefully select teachers and staff who exemplify the image and philosophy of the pre-school. The pre-school director makes sure criminal background checks for all personnel are clean and clear. They also maintain records on all pre-school staff.
Advertising and Marketing
The pre-school principal brings awareness of the pre-school’s services by marketing the school. The principal places ads on billboards, on the internet and in local newspapers. The principal decides where potential consumers look for pre-school services and chooses the most cost-effective means of reaching them. Pre-school directors sometimes speak at public events in an effort to recruit new families into the school. The director may build a website or hire someone else to make an Internet presence for the school.
Financial Management
Pre-school directors budget the school’s expenses and purchase needs supplies for the school. Purchasing food, paying rent on the building, paying teachers and staff and numerous other expenses all draw from the pre-school budget and financial performance. Not-for-profit pre-school directors write grants to obtain funding for the school.
Staff Supervision
Pre-school directors supervise the pre-school staff. When staff members do not follow rules and guidelines, the director redirects staff to correct the problem. Pre-school principals spend time observing classrooms within the school and making judgments about how to improve the program. If a staff member calls in sick, it is the principal’s duty to ensure a replacement is found in order to maintain the proper child-to-teacher ratio. The principal communicates with teachers regarding their job performance and suggested improvements.
Record Keeping
The director of a pre-school keeps all paperwork current. Each child’s files contain enrolment forms, health forms, parent contact records and progress notes. In addition to paperwork on the children, the principal keeps logs of fire drills and staff training meetings. The principal maintains records of how full the pre-school is on a given day and incident reports for injuries that occur on school grounds. Children taking medications while at school have additional paperwork.
and leader
There is no conclusive blue print for leadership; most people would agree that there are some recognisable qualities that leader’s process. They just don’t agree with each other in every way.
Many people have developed theories around what makes a good leader. Two of these theories are covered in this Module.
Theory One
This is a generic theory that has been put onto the internet and has real value.
What makes a good leader, other than the relentless pursuit of excellence?
To be a good leader there are seven leadership skills that you will need to possess. These seven leadership skills are:
- Thinking strategically
- Creating passion for your vision
- Being a good manager
- Performance managing when required
- Be in the business of employee service
- Communication, communication and communication
- Feedback, feedback and more feedback
Let us look at each of these skills individually;
Thinking strategically
A good leader is strategic with their thinking, they understand what result business is trying to achieve and how the business will achieve these results. They will ensure all of their decisions and actions are consistent with the vision. They don’t react to the day-to-day noise in their business, instead, they seek systematic and strategic solutions that not only resolve today’s problems but also prevent future problems from occurring.
Further, a good leader will continually scan for things that are out of their control including changes in their operating environments. When they see a change in their environment that might stop them from achieving their results, they will quickly develop contingency plans to ensure that the things they cannot control do not stop them from meeting or exceeding their targets.
Creating passion for your vision
A good leader, at any level in the business will have a vision, this vision is like a fire that burns inside of them, and it’s the source of their passion. They discuss their vision at every opportunity,
- In team meetings
- One on one with employee
- When assigning tasks, and
- When giving feedback
By reinforcing the vision they are ensuring it becomes important in the minds of their people, importance drives passion, the more a leader refers to their vision the more employee passion will grow for the vision.
Being a good manager
What makes a good leader? Well, you need to start by being a good manager. What is a good manager? Simply put a good manager knows the numbers. For example, they know how;
- How much work there is to do
- How long it takes
- How many people are required to do the work
- How much work the team complete yesterday, and
- How much revenue came in
- What it costs to generate the revenue
- How their expenses stack up against best practice
A good manager also has strong discipline, they always follow up and they meet their commitments.
Performance managing when required
A good leader surrounds themselves with good people, they do not accept inferior performance, and they make the required tough decisions to resolve performance issue.
Be in the business of employee service
Whatmakesagoodleader.com has developed the term “Employee Service” to provide the required context for leaders. What makes a good leader? A good leader is someone who is committed to providing their employees with the service that their people deserve. So, what is employee service? Employee Service is a commitment from the leader to provide the employee with a high level of service to satisfy the employee’s needs; employees have many needs and by satisfying these needs the leader will engage the employee’s discretionary effort of their people
Communication, communication and communication
How much communication? A good leader provides significantly more communication than is generally required to complete the employee’s job. This additional communication can include;
- Changes that are planned
- Financial performance, cost and revenue
- Current productivity or service levels
- Expected future levels of performance
- Changes in other areas of the business
- Business plan highlights
- New customers
- Lost customers
- New competitors or changes with competitors
They provide context with their communications, and they repeat their key messages 100 times in 100 different ways.
Feedback, feedback and more feedback
A good leader will use feedback to help reinforce their business priorities; this feedback is consistent with the leaders;
- Vision
- Strategy
- Values
Their feedback is provided freely, and it matches the contribution of the employee. The leader speaks more about their people than they do about themselves.
In summary what makes a good leader?
A good leader acts strategically, they craft out a vision and refer constantly to their vision, in their communications and when giving feedback. They surround themselves with good people.
THEORY TWO
This has been taken from a book which is a collaboration of many people and the book is called “Develop your Leadership Qualities”.
LEADERSHIP QUALIFIES
There is no simple recipe for successful leadership. There are, however, certain ingredients that any successful leader much possess or try to develop. These include courage, vision, confidence, judgment, dedication and initiative and they are the raw materials or foundation stones of leadership. How these qualities manifest themselves depends on the context and circumstances.
COURAGE
What is meant by courage? Courage, according to Webster’s dictionary, is the “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear or difficulty” It helps a person fight for or defend what they believe is right. And in more extreme circumstances, courage provides a person with the necessary fortitude to take on hostile or difficult situations. There are various levels of courage that manifest themselves according to the situation. For instance, bravery in the battlefield often requires life and death choices. Whereas courage in the workplace usually does not call for such extremes. But courage is still necessary in the office. Courage, along with confidence, gives a team leader the boldness to promote new ideas and adventures, as well as make the decisions that are unpleasant but necessary.
VISION
A person with vision is endowed with inspiration, unusual discernment, foresight and a well-developed imagination. An imaginative person is someone is creative, able to view a problem with a different perspective and to deal with it in an unexpected ways. In other words, having imagination means that you can see some things differently from other people. Charles de Gaulle said,
“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.”
Without imagination there can be no vision and a leader without vision cannot inspire others to follow his or her lead. This is as true for a young mother determined to set up a local playgroup as it is for a politician or business leader.
CONFIDENCE
Confidence is having the faith or belief that you will act in a right, proper or effective way. It stresses faith in yourself and your powers without any suggestion of conceit or arrogance. Confidence is at the heart of successful leadership and without it a leader cannot inspire confidence in others. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving British prime minister this century, had abundant self confidence in her personal abilities, her policies and her ideals. Her self-confidence was unshakeable. It was a quality that evens her most hostile adversaries’ recognised as being a large part of her disputable charisma. And it was a quality that made many British voters feels that the country and their future were safe in her hands. That is a group response leaders of all types should strive for.
JUDGEMENT
“Men either have it or they don’t have it. They can develop it, if they have it, but cannot acquire it if they don’t have it,” quoted Clement Attlee, historically one of the most revered prime ministers of Britain.
Judgment is the faculty of being able to make critical distinctions and achieve a balanced view point. It involves the ability to look at a whole range of issues and restraints, both large and small, in order to reach the most appropriate and effective conclusion.
Some leaders are good at making business and tactical judgments, but are hopeless when it comes to people. One element of good judgment is integrity, which means being incorruptible and honest. We particularly demand it of our high –profile political leaders, reacting with outrage when it is revealed to be lacking. There are degrees of lack of integrity, of course. For instance, we accept that most politicians manipulate the media, indulge in the odd devious ploy or are occasionally economical with the truth. Richard Nixon provides one of the more famous examples of lying and lack of integrity in recent times. During the 1972 U.S. presidential campaign, Nixon was involved in the illegal bugging of the Democratic Party headquarters. After first trying to organise a cover-up, Nixon (quoted as saying “When the president does it, which means it’s not illegal”) was forced to resign – the first American president to do so.
In addition to integrity, good judgment requires an essence of decisiveness. Decisiveness is having the quality of deciding and being conclusive. But decisiveness is not to be confused with implosive behavior. A good leader is able to weigh up the options quickly and thoroughly and reach a decision that is based on his or her experience and understanding.
DEDICATION
Dedication is the devoting or setting aside of your time, your life or your efforts for a particular purpose. And for a leader, making known your dedication to a job, task and team is an effective way of encouraging members to react in kind. A leader needs to be constantly aware of the team’s attitude towards their task and to provide that he or she is dedicated to making it a success. A child knows if a parent is dedicated and when a parent is not interested in parenting then the child will often distance himself emotionally from the parent. An employee can have similar reactions to a leader who isn’t dedicated to the job’ he or she won’t be inspired to perform well if they have no example from above.
INITIATIVE
Initiative or enterprise means the energy or aptitude displayed in the initiation of an action or taking the first step of task. In other words, initiative is leading – leading, for instance, with ideas, suggestions and enthusiasm. In battle, the leader of the platoon will be the fit to charge at the enemy. In the office, the good leader will often initiate the ideas for solving a problem or planning a strategy. Sometimes, the idea might not be supplanted by better ones, but the point is that it was the leader who got the ball rolling in the right direction.
Bill Gates
Bill Gates has some interesting ideas on leadership. Here is an article that was published in the Business times.
A good manger has at least 10 good qualities
Recently I wrote about 10 qualities of a good employee, which prompted quite a few people to ask about the attributes of a good manager.
There isn’t a magic formula for good management, of course, but if you’re a manager, perhaps these tips will help you be more effective:
Choose a field thoughtfully. Make it one you enjoy. It’s hard to be productive without enthusiasm. It is true whether you’re a manager or employee;
Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team, because a mediocre team gives mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is. One mistake is holding on to somebody who doesn’t measure up. It’s easy to keep this person on the job because he’s not terrible at what he does. But a good manager will replace him or move him to where he can succeed unambiguously.
Create a productive environment. This is particular challenge because it requires different approaches depending on the context. Sometimes you maximize productivity by giving everybody his or her own office. Sometimes you achieve it by moving everybody into open space. Sometimes you use financial incentives to stimulate productivity. A combination of approaches is usually required. One element that almost always increases productivity is providing an information system that empowers employees. When I was building Microsoft, I set out to create an environment where software developers could thrive. I wanted a company where engineers liked to work. I wanted to create a culture that encouraged then to work together, share ideas and remain motivated. If I hadn’t been a software engineer myself, there’s no way I could have achieved by goal.
Define success. Make it clear to your employees that constitute success and how they should measure their achievements. Goals must be realist. Project schedules, for example, must be set by the people who do the work. People will accept a “bottoms-up”, deadline they helped set, but they’ll be cynical about a schedule imposed from the top that doesn’t map to reality. Unachievable goals undermine an organisation. At my company, in addition to regular team meetings and one-on-one sessions between managers and employees, we use mass gatherings periodically and email routinely to communicate what we expect from employees. If a reviewer or customer chooses another company’s product, we analyse the situation. We say to our people, “The next time around we’ve got to win. What is needed?” The answers to these questions help us define success.
To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at communicating. This is hard to fake. If you don’t enjoy interacting with people, it’ll be hard to manage them as well. You must have a wide range of personal contacts within your organisation. You need relationships – not necessarily personal friendships – with a fair number of people, including your own employees. You must encourage these people to tell you what’s going on and give you feedback about what people are thinking about the company and your role in it.
Develop our people to do their jobs better than you can. Transfer your skills to them. This is an exciting goal, but it can be threatening to a manager who worries that he’s training his replacement. If you’re concerned, asks your boss: “If I develop somebody who can do my job super well, does the company have some other challenge for me or not?” Many smart managers like to see their employees increase their responsibilities because it frees the managers to tackle new or undone tasks. There’s no shortage of jobs for good managers. The world has an infinite amount of work to be done.
Build morale. Make it clear there’s plenty of goodwill to go around and that it’s not just you or some hotshot manager who’s going to look good if things go well. Give people a sense of the importance of what they’re working on – its importance to the company, its importance to customers.
Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate. The last thing people want is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to time, provide you can be hands-on by taking on one of the less attractive tasks and using it as an example of how your employees should meet challenges.
Don’t make the same decision twice. Spend the time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you don’t revisit the issue unnecessarily. If you’re too willing to reopen issues, it interferes not only with your execution but also with your motivation to make a decision in the first place. People hat indecisive leadership; however, that doesn’t mean you have to decide everything the moment it comes to your attention. Nor that you can’t even reconsider a decision.
Let people know whom to please. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s your boss, and maybe it’s somebody who works for you. You’re in trouble and risking paralyses in your organisation when employees start saying to themselves: “Am I supposed to be making this person happy or this other person happy? They seem to have different priorities.”
I don’t pretend that these are the only 10 approaches a manager should keep in mind. There are lots of others. Just a month ago I encouraged leaders to demand bad news before good news from their employees. But these 10 ideas may help you manage well.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Know your strengths and weaknesses look at the following statements and consider how they apply to you. Think of yourself in a leadership position, whether it is being in charge of a team at work, leading a scout pack, or chairing the PTA – any role in which you have the opportunity to act as the group leader.
Decide whether each statement is always, sometimes, seldom or never true of you. Then look at the conclusions to identify areas of your leadership skills that could be improved.
Conclusions
- If you have answered never or seldom to any statements 1-6 then you need to work on setting goals
- If you have answered never or seldom to any statements 7-12 then you need to work on planning skills
- If you have answered never or seldom to any statements 13-15 then you need to work on briefing skills
- If you have answered never to seldom to any statements 16-22 then you need to work on your time management
- If you have answered never or seldom to any statements 22-28 then you need to look at effective communication
- If you have answered never or seldom to any statements 28-34 then you need to look at effective communication and negotiating skills
- If you have answered never or seldom to any statements 33-34 then you need to look at your listening skills
NOTE: ALL THESE SKILLS WILL BE COVERED IN FUTURE MODULES
Leaders as role models
People naturally want to follow a good leader. After meeting with an effective leader it is not unusual to feel uplifted, inspired and motivated to work towards a common goal.
Effective leaders make others feel good about themselves as well as the work they are doing. The leader has a vision of what she wants to achieve and can communicate that vision to others in a way that makes people want to be part of it.
One thing a good leader typically does is to communicate the big picture, so that each employee can see how the particular role he plays makes a contribution to the final result.
In a recent study of employees at all levels in companies of all sizes, Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, authors of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, found that “meaningful work, making a difference and a contribution” was one of the top three reasons given by 90% of employees when asked why they remain at accompany. (The other reasons cited among the top three were “career growth, learning and development” and “exciting work and challenge.”)
When someone understands why a job that might otherwise be considered menial is important, that person is likely to be both more committed and more productive.
People are also likely to follow leaders they see as positive role models. If a leader demonstrates a strong belief in something, it inspires others to work towards the leaders’ vision, even when a situation might appear to be almost hopeless. An excellent example of a leader who faced this type of situation is Lee Iacocca. When Chrysler’s fortunes reached a low in the 1980’s, he cut his salary to $1 per year to prove his conviction that things would get better. They did. Under his leadership, the company flourished.
Good leaders not only “walk the walk”, “Talk the talk”. When they speak about the future, they are positive and upbeat Mark Victor Hansen, a successful motivational speaker and co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, said that even in the early days of his career, if someone asked how he was doing he always responded that he was doing fabulously. His enthusiasm won him plenty of supporters who helped make his vision a reality.
Yet someone feel the way to get support from others is by telling them how grim a situation is, hoping that will make them want to help turn things around. On the contrary, Eeyores (those who sound like the gloomy Winnie the Pooh character) may inspire people to start looking for another job, rather than work to improve the situation they are in.
If you have a tendency to be negative, but want to inspire others to support you in achieving a goal, resolve to focus on solution an instead come up with a Plan B. If necessary have Plan C waiting in the wings. Maintain a can-do attitude and you are likely to attract people who will support you in achieving your goals.
They also understand that different people are motivated by different things. For employees motivated by a need for achievement, a leader explains how the task offers an opportunity to take on a challenging but achievable goal. Those with a desire for power are told how their participation can bring them prestige and lead to greater opportunities. While employees who are motivated by affiliation need to hear how they will be part of a team of people working together.
Effective leaders also use techniques to communicate their belief that each team member is important, including remembering and using peoples preferred names (e.g. not “Rick” if someone prefers to be called “Richard”). As Dale Carnegie observed, “the average person together”. Keys to remembering names include paying attention when introduced to someone, mentally repeating the name and using it in conversation.
Good leaders will introduce employees by name first, rather than job title. They refer to employees as team members, associates, or colleagues – never as “subordinates” – and “nonprofessional” staff. Words have power, including the power to make people feel whether or not they are important to the success of an organisation.
Good leaders believe that every team member matters and foster an environment that makes everyone feel important. It is no wonder they attract all the support they need to help them achieve their goals.
Good leaders believe that every team member matters and foster an environment that makes everyone feel important. It is no wonder they attract all the support they need to help them achieve their goals.
