How Value Systems Build Teachers’ Leadership
Written By Abena Sey
October 21, 2020
Building a teacher's capacity for leadership begins with learning their external sources of meaning and motivations and applying these to their role in the school. Teachers will experience value in what they contribute to their school, and will attain personal and professional fulfillment in the process. School administrators will experience positive behaviours from teachers who are satisfied with their work situations and are internally motivated to perform to the best of their abilities, autonomously and efficaciously, to meet their students’ needs. Achieving these positive outcomes are a result of leadership strategies that help staff create value in what they do.
Mengel’s (2012) study on leading with emotional intelligence proved that effective leaders motivate members of their organization through helping them create value in what they do, experience, and display at work. This conclusion is based on Frankl’s motivation theory which Mengel summarizes as an anthropological basis for the importance of values in leadership processes and for the need to create meaningful work environments. According to this theory, “humans are first and foremost motivated by doing something that is meaningful (creative values), by experiencing something or someone that is meaningful (experiential values), and by developing a meaningful attitude towards circumstances in life (attitudinal values)” [Frankl as summarized by Mengel (2012)]. Too add, Erdem & Cicekdemir (2016) suggested that employees’ perception of job satisfaction and high motivation leads to desired behaviour in employees, and that when school administrators recognize “the elements of motivation [...] it becomes easier to find ways to motivate people.”
To add, Murphy (2013) suggested the importance of school administrators creating a shared vision. Achieving this involves listening to and acknowledging the ideas and perceptions of your teachers. Murphy suggested that “a key to effective persuasion [...] is the capacity to listen to the perspectives of others” (2013). Thus, when school administrators listen to and consider the views of their teachers when making decisions, they demonstrate that they value their teachers' input and want to include them in the work involved for the shared vision. Murphy calls this action dependency on one’s teachers. When school administrators rely on staff members, they give them “a greater sense of efficacy, responsibility, and control” which results in meaningful, value-added contributions from teachers towards the vision (Murphy, 2013).
When an education administrator invests in building their teachers’ leadership capacity, there are positive impacts on the school community. Teachers’ increased accountability and engagement in their work lead to students’ academic achievement. It is worth the investment in planning and collaborating with your teachers to help them see value in the work that they do!
References
Erdem, A. R. & Cicekdemir, I. Opinions of Primary and Secondary School Principals about Internal and External Motivation. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, n64 p157-172 2016
Mengel, T. Leading with "Emotional" Intelligence--Existential and Motivational Analysis in Leadership and Leadership Development. Journal on Educational Psychology, v5 n4 p24-31 Feb-Apr 2012
Murphy, J. T. (2013). The unheroic side of leadership: Notes from the swamp. In M. Grogan (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (3rd. ed. , pp. 28-39). San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass