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Educational Management

Notes educational managers are recruited from amongst the professionals, teachers and other generalists.
They are not persons who have been trained in administration or management science. They have
acquired a few required skills (that too poorly) just working on the job through trial and error
behaviour without knowing why it works and how it works. They utterly lack managerial insight.
Many of the Vice-Chancellors, Principals of Colleges, Heads of the Departments, Headmasters of
the Schools and Directors, etc., have poor understanding of the goals of their organizations, the
organizational process through which these goals can be achieved and the kind of leadership style
that may be most suited to the kind of situation prevailing in the organization.

11.1 Meaning of Leadership

Management of any organization, education or otherwise, may be defined as working with the
through individuals and groups of individuals to accomplish its goals. This is exactly what a manager
or a leader is required to do. He has to manage his institution. It means he must achieve the goals
of the organization with the help of other people working in the organization and also with the help
of the needed technology and all the inputs available. Thus, leadership is inseparably bound up
with the achievement of organizational goals. Leadership in education organizations as a corollary
must also be seen in this perspective. Thus, management of education institutions implies. Leadership
in education; and leadership in education, in turn, implies efficient and effective ways of achieving
the institutional goals. Effective leader-managers are the basic and scarcest resources of any enterprise.
There is shortage of effective leader-managers in all fields. But this is more so in the field of education.
The tern ‘manager’ points out to a person who is holding a managerial position such as the Vice-
Chancellor of a University, Principal of a College, Head of the Department, Director of institution,
Headmaster of a School, Supervisors, Inspectors, etc., since these persons are held responsible for
achieving the organizational goals, they are to be legitimately designated as leaders. Whether they
are effective or ineffective that is entirely a different matter. However, some experts in the field have
defined leadership in more specific and technical ways. George R. Terry has defined leadership as
an “activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives.” In the light of this definition
an educational leader is one who makes willingly all efforts on achieving institutional goals be
influencing and making other strive for the same.
Tannenbaum, Weschler, Massarik define leadership as “interpersonal influence exercised in a
situation and directed. Towards the attainment of a specialized goal or goals.” Koontz and O’
Donnell’ state that “Leadership is influencing people to follow in the achievement of a common
goal.” It emerges form all these definitions that leadership orientation has two dimensions inherent
in its connotation-the achievement of organizational goals and working with people. These may be
considered two attitudes towards people. His effectiveness as a leader is said to be determined by
these two sets of his attitudes.

11.2 Social Notion of Leadership

The concept of leadership is a social notion. It was formally developed during the 1960s to emphasize
the ability of the leader to influence the people in his organization in order to achieve the organizationl
goals. It emphasizes the interactional processes involved in the achievement of goals. Each manager
in the field of education is called upon, every day to display leadership in a variety of forms.
Practice of leadership is, in all forms esssentially, an interpersonal activity.

11.3 Theories of Leadership

What constitutes leadership ? What kind of leadership style is more effective ? What are the
characteristics of an effective leader ? How can leadership be measured ? These were some of the
puzzling questions that were heavily weighing in the minds of researchers and administrators in

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