Reasersh Paper final

Leadership Education; Its necessity and how to develop

              What a meaning does the word “leader” has? Does it indicate the powerful historical leaders such as George Washington, Napoleon, and Hitler? Otherwise, does it means merely “people who leads others”? Majority of people may imagine the former. However the original roll of leader is the latter. Why people have this image on “leader”? Probably it is because of its special power and influence to the masses. The special characteristics which leaders posse commonly is called leadership. Like as we are taking the class of leadership, many people are seeking what is required for leadership. Recently the youth are required leadership in shukatsu, the activity of seeking employment. Also in the AO entrance exam of ICU, one of the essays must be about examinees’ leadership. Many “entrance exam” favors leadership in its selection because it would be the certification of trustworthy. In order to exert leadership among the people, this person must be at least trustworthy with his ability, character, and nature. People obey him because they trust him and feel friendly with him. Nobody will obey to obnoxious one. Thus, leadership has good impression on people and makes smooth human relationship. Generally, person who is trustworthy and friendly will be taken as “good person”. Learning leadership will help people to be good person, so leadership education should be included to educational curriculum.

              This paper will analyze the elements of leadership, and how to develop it through education in order to become “good person.” Firstly it will show clearly the elements of leadership before giving discussion on leadership. After confirming what leadership is, actual example of leadership development program, and recommended environment for leadership education are given. As we know how to develop leadership under what environment, we have to know what is required for “leadership educators”; called educational leadership. Finally my conclusion and further study will be given.

 

What is “leadership”?

Many of people will be able to answer this question, “Can you tell the person with great leadership?” In spite of it, they may not be able to answer this question, “Can you tell what leadership is?” “Leadership” is too vague expression to discuss. First of all, it is necessary to make a clear definition of leadership. According to Lori, leadership is “an ability which can be developed, not necessarily inborn, and which is manifested in performance, not merely in potential” (93). Leadership is come out from three ways. One is heredity. Although leadership is not necessarily inborn and can be acquired, some people own the traits of leadership by nature. One good example is intelligence. Worldwide great leaders possess extreme intelligence. There is a limitation for “acquired intelligence.” One element of leadership is undoubtedly heredity. Two is environment. Even if some people possess leadership skills as their nature, it will not be exerted under the inappropriate situation. The children from excellent people are not always excellent. Some might be restricted their skills as leader, and other might be spoiled because of their circumstances. Focusing on excellent people, they are not always blessed with circumstance. Certain environment helps to develop leadership in children. Three is training. To develop leadership, enough stimuli are required. For example, there is an extremely smart kid. Adult requests him to make a beautiful statue for next month’s exhibit with his five classmates, not his “friends.” How can he achieve is successfully? Probably adults with average intelligence will be able to do it better. That is because adults are more experienced. In the leadership education, two of three: environment and training have to be prepared for children. (Jones, 8-9)

              Then, what exact qualities are required for leadership? Some researchers discovered necessary traits among the leaders. From these researches, “common traits” of leadership are discovered.

I, Courage, energy and initiative to take actions for organization.

Leader has to be the first person to work for follower. Also, he must be the central of everyone to influence his followers. The leader who is lack of this quality is not enough to influence others because he cannot “move” the followers psychologically and physically.

II, Intelligence and insight to understand organization and his follower. Intelligence creates new idea for the difficulties, and insight to grasp what is going on around and inside of organization. The leader lacking of this quality will lose a clue of solution and make the problem worse.

III, Sincerity, kindness and friendliness to make “trust.”

Nobody will follow the person who is lack of trust. Cooperation is based on the mutual trust. The person lacking of this quality cannot be a leader ever because of his selfishness. Even more, he will be hated or ostracized by others. Some might not be surprised and say it is natural for leader to have it. However, how many people can lists up all of those qualities before giving the answers? Probably few of them can do it. That is why many researchers seek the essence of leadership and that is why the society desires a good leader. The purpose of leadership education is to develop these three qualities. (11-12, Jones)

 

Examle of leadership development

In order to develop leadership skills introduced in previous section, there have been leadership program. By giving actual example, we try to get image of “leadership education.” There is a leadership developing program called “The Ohio 4-H Teen Community Leadership College” in the United States. It was originally the program for adult to develop family leadership, “the Ohio State University’s Family Community Leadership Program.” Through this program, the participants showed developed ability and understanding. Main five purposes of this program are

I, To give trainings of “communication, leadership, conflict management, decision making, time management, and leadership styles”

II, To encourage their potential ability and make them realize the responsibility as the social member

III, To make them independent thinkers with self-confident enough to possess authority

IV, To make them active participants in the community

V, To improve their volunteer ethic by serving as the ambassadors for 4-H youth development program.

This program is based on the understanding that there are diverse leadership depends on the situations. Political leaders are required intelligence, confidence and communication skills to attract audience. Otherwise, school leaders are required kindness, communication and conflict management skills. Every situation needs appropriate leadership. This program is to develop “community leadership”, which can be “any community.” Thus community leadership is the basic leadership to lead any community at school level or even at family level. The results were taken by self-evaluation for participants’ changes in leadership skills; communication, conflict management, decision making, awareness of responsibility, self-confidence and initiative. The significant changes are found especially in “collaboration skill” and the lowest was “initiative.” The conclusion is this program has positive effects on participants’ perception of leadership. Thus this kind of leadership education will be effective.

              To make the education more successful, the recommended environment is “democratic community or society.” The positive work of democracy is freedom of possessing individual identity and acting as individual identity. The freedom is built upon the basic equality as human. In this environment, people can excel their potential. Under the equal situation, people can act according to their thought. How to make this is distribution of internal authority. Central authority means one person has bigger power than others and it is not everyone is equal because of its property. The hierarchy makes communication merely the conversation, will be the obstacle to make decision, and what is worse is conflict will not be a “conflict.” The communication upon different hierarchy of people will not be the mutual understanding because people at higher position possess the important information, and also will have sense of superiority because of his position. In the decision-making, it will be also the obstacle because people with power will have the almost all right to decide the things. Same will occur in conflict because the “strong opinion from strong people in society” will overcome the other opinion. Since people at higher position have right to decide, there should not be the conflict, the difference in opinion. To make the best environment to develop leadership skills, the internal equality should be maintained (Woods 11-12, 27-31).

 

Required skills for educators; Educational leadership

As students develop their leadership skills through education, “educators” must possess leadership as educators. Educators are not merely teachers. They might be the adults around children since all adults can be teachers for children. Educators must be careful of their behavior and action. This leadership for educators are called educational leadership. Some skill should be taught to students for leadership development. Main three skills of educational leadership are

I, Self-management and self-understanding

Self-management involves self-development. In order to achieve it, the following abilities are required.

A, Knowledge to judge everything and have an insight of it

B, Skills to balance the internal power such as communication skills of clear massage and listening, facilitation skill to equip necessity for the best performance, and management skill to make attunement

C, Attitude which means commitment to purpose and value.

D, Creativity to develop insight and make connection instead of old one.

E, Consciousness which is the concept to develop the capacity to understand different individuals.

What is more required is self-acceptance which accepts yourself as your identity. Since self-development is developing your strength and modifying your weakness, the acceptance of yourself is necessary. This process of accepting identity will be self- development. What the self-management means is understanding you and developing yourself. By understanding yourself, you will be able to “manage yourself” to the purpose. This is connected to self-understanding of your personality, sensing, feelings, thinking and judging (Tamlinson 1-2).

II, Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand and manage individuals' “feeling” including you. Then, what required for emotional intelligence?

A,“Emotional literacy” to be truly honest yourself. Sense your and others' inner mind and understand them.

B, “Emotional fitness” to get along with human relationship from the aspect of emotion.

C, “Emotional depth” to build your core personality and raise your potential.

D, “Emotional alchemy” to get opportunities and compete for the future.

What is the most important is communication because it is directly connected to all of four essentials (Tamlinson 22-23, Sergiovanni 40-41).

III, Managing stress

These all are connected to your management of stress. The causes of stress are unsatisfied needs of yourself. That can be emotional-physical needs; needs for secure, psycho-social needs; needs for connection to the outside, personal-intellectual needs; needs for new finding or creative strategy.  To satisfy your needs, firstly identify and clarify your needs. Then, understand your needs and find a solution. It is not difficult to find solution because stress is caused because you can solve it if you did as what you want. The effective solution is doing the conceptual approach to the needs, or psychological approach to alternative activities. This psychological approach is to do something fun for you to satisfy yourself instead of unsatisfied your needs (Tamlinson 78-80).

             

Conclusion

              We learned three big sections for leadership education. First, what leadership is and its elements are. Second, the actual example of leadership-developing program in the U.S and the environment makes education effective. Third, the essential quality for educators; educational leadership is introduced. Furthermore, in order to make leadership effective, the followers of leaders should have the concepts as “followers.” This is “followership,” the new concepts for leadership. If followership is included to leadership education, leaders will understand more about the leadership.

 

 

Works Cited

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McCallum, John. “Follwership: The other side of leadership.” IVEY, Oct. 2013. Web. 15

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Kleon, Scott. “Leadership Skill Development of Teen Leaders.” Journal of Extension

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Sergiovanni, Thomas. “Educational and Organizational Leadership in Elementary

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Woods, Philip. “Democratic leadership in Education.” London: Paul Chapman

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