Episode 1: Why Educational Leadership & My Leadership Styles

Jeff Linden's Educational Leadership Script for PodCast (Leadership Styles)

1). What is your story? How did you get into education? 

I got into education through coaching Junior High Football at Kearney Catholic. I fell in love with coaching and decided I would go back to college and become a teacher. That was the experience that drove me to become an educator. As an educator, I love watching students and athletes become successful through your teaching or coaching them.

2). What made you want to become an educational leader? 

I personally did not want to become an administrator at first but after 11 years of teaching math/Physical Education and coaching, I felt the desire to do more and get out of the classroom so I applied and was given the opportunity to become a 7-12 Principal for the past four years and I absolutely love it. I do miss the classroom but as a Principal, I am having an effect on just on student learning but I get the opportunity to grow teachers and future educational leaders. 

3). As an educational leader, what would you say is your leadership style? In other words, what leadership style would you say fits your current leadership at your school?  

Definitely, in my first couple of years as a Principal, I would say I was inclusive where I built relationships with my teachers, staff, and students and expanded that to parents, community members, and school board members. I focused a lot on relationships. Now, in my fourth year as a Principal, I find myself being more of a situational leader where I will use the leadership style that fits the situation. For example, I use servant leadership style when I help the custodial staff clean off the tables after a lunch session or I clean up a mess that is brought to my attention rather than asking them to do it. I use inclusive/collaborative leadership when I meet with my MTSS team or when I have an all-staff meeting and I ask my teachers and staff what ideas they have to solve the issue we are having. There are even times where I have to use direct leadership, which I personally try to limit because I do not like to have to use it, but there are times I need to. For example when I am in a situation where I am using my MANDT training and I have to directly communicate with teachers and staff members around what I need them to do. Therefore, my leadership has evolved over the past four years and I find myself more of a situational leader now. 

4). What experiences have you had as an educational leader that influence your leadership style?  

As a teacher, I have had four different Principals and each has its own leadership style that I have drawn off of. One was a direct leader where they used their positional authority, one was relationship building and was in the classroom a lot of building relationships with their staff, another was more collaborative and gave teachers a voice, and one was transactional and they would ask for you to do things like drive a bus and would pay you for your time. Overall, each leader was unique in their leadership style and I was able to reflect on the things that I like and did not like and was able to develop my own personal leadership style. These experiences have shaped me as an educational leader. I would also say my experiences in small rural and metro public schools have also shaped my ability to be an effective educational leader.

5). With your leadership style approach, how does it influence your teachers, staff, students, and school climate? 

The thing is a principal’s leadership style will influence teachers, staff, students, and school climate. That is why it’s important that principals understand their own leadership style and how those influences may affect things such as relationships, retention, and school climate. If a Principal is an Authoriantarian or Direct leader and that is the only leadership style they use they will create a school climate that is based on that leadership style and could create a school climate where teachers, staff, and students may not trust the leader or maybe afraid to challenge the leader even if the leader is incorrect on an issue. Also if a Principal is a transformative leader who builds relationships and motivates their staff to go above and beyond that educational leader will create a different school climate where teachers, staff, and students feel supported. The influence of an educational leader’s style has an effect on teachers, staff, students, and ultimately the school climate. This is an area of interest to me and is what my dissertation is based on. I will not go into a lot of details because that can be a whole podcast episode on its own!.

6). As an educational leader, what are some important skills one must have to be successful? Why? 

Some skills educational leaders need to possess are organizational, communication, and temperament skills. To be an educational leader you must be organized because you will have situations come up throughout the day that will interrupt something you are trying to complete and you do not have the luxury to ignore it. That is why I like to list things at the end of the day so when I come back to work I know where I left off and I can organize myself the next morning so I can continue down the list. This list is fluid and ever-changing but it’s important because it is how I organize myself each day. I also use a google calendar and will review it at the end of the day and make reminders to myself on my list as well. An educational leader must also have great communication skills. Principals have to communicate clearly and this can take many forms. One thing I do is return phone calls within 24 hours and address the issues promptly. I also do a Daily Reminder Email which informs my teachers and staff of things going on for that day and future events coming up. This allows for fewer meetings but we do meet when needed. I will also use verbal communications with teachers and staff through my daily morning building walks as well as touching base with people about various situations. Finally, doing newsletters and social media posts is another way to communicate with the community as a whole and I take the time to brag about the great things my teachers, staff, and students are up to because transparency is very important and besides the community needs to know how awesome are teachers, staff, and students are. We cannot keep those things to ourselves. The final skill is temperament, being an educational leader will challenge your emotions and as a Principal, I do get upset but I try not to show it very much because when you handle situations that are emotional you must take the emotion out of your decisions, especially when it comes to discipline. When Principal reacts through their emotions they may not take logic into account and that is why as a Principal I have to sit back and reflect on the decision prior to making the final determination if it’s a situation I need advice on I will reach out to my Superintendent and the other Administrators I work with to hear their thoughts. I may also contact a Principal from another district that has gone through a similar situation and ask them for advice as well and to check my logic in that situation. Therefore, an educational leader must have a good temperament and not get too high or low in emotional situations. Overall, an educational leader that has good organizational, communication, and temperament skills will be a successful administrator.

7). As an educational leader, what would you say is the most important thing you can do to influence the education at your school? 

The most important thing I can do as a Principal to influence the education at my school is to have the ability to listen, support, and motivate teachers, staff, and students to do their best each and every day they walk through the building doors. My goal is to have built positive relationships with all my teachers, staff, and students as well as parents, community members, and school board members. Having these positive connections and interactions transfer into the education at our school. I will also support through various means as for teacher growth we use the Network for Educator Effectiveness evaluation tool and this tool has allowed the Principal and teachers to have great conversations about where they are at in their teaching and how I can support them to become better teachers. I also support allowing teachers to go to professional development opportunities outside the district. Finally, I find ways to motivate my staff. This year we are in the 2nd year of implementing Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and the teachers and staff have been handing out SOARing Eagle tickets to students who display SOARing Behaviors which are being Safe, Ownership, Attitude, and Respect. Well as a Principal I felt if we are asking our teachers to hand out SOARing Eagle tickets, as a Principal I need to do the same for my teaching staff. Therefore, this year my teachers and staff members may receive a SOARing Eagle ticker for displaying SOARing behaviors and going above and beyond for our school and students. As the Principal, I will fill out the ticket and I will personally hand them the ticket and explain why they received the SOARing Eagle ticket. The teachers or staff members that received one will be entered into a drawing at the end of each quarter and they win a $50 gift card of their choice each quarter. I will also do a social media post about those teachers each Quarter. I believe an educational leader that I cannot ask my teachers or staff to do something that I am not willing to do myself or have done myself. One of my biggest strengths is remembering what it was like to be a teacher in a math classroom for 11 years. I hope I will always be conscientious of how my leadership style may influence teachers, staff, and students.

8). As an educational leader, tell us about a moment you are most proud of?  

The one thing I am proud of is the development and implementation of our MTSS team. This team has a counselor, school psychologist, SPED teacher, Core Teacher, Specials Teacher, and Building Principal. They meet twice a week to discuss students’ Academic, Behavior, and Mental Health situations. This team has been influential in monitoring students that struggle with one of these three areas and they develop plans to help these students stay on track with their education. This team has been a part of IEPs, 504s, Behavior plans, Alternative schooling plans, as well as getting students the proper mental health help. The members of the MTSS team have learned to see students differently and have done a great job of meeting students where they are at in order to help them to be successful students so they can be productive adults.

9). What advice would you give a future educational leader? 

My biggest advice for future educational leaders is to spend time in the classroom for at least 5 or more years prior to becoming an educational leader. The main reason for this goes back to the time I spent in the military as a US Army Reserve Solder. The best Commanders of an Army Unit were not the Commanders that can straight out of college and ROTC but those who worked up from the ranks of junior enlisted, then NCO, and then a Commanding officer. The reason they are more effective is that they never forgot what it was like to be a private and knew how their leadership will influence their ability to lead. Therefore, as an educator, I believe the best educational leaders are those that spent time in the classroom and did not become an educational leaders with less than 5 years of classroom time. That is my opinion and I know someone out there may not agree with me but it’s important that we grow teachers into quality educational leaders. 

10). When you are finished with your educational career, what do you want your legacy to be? 

When I look back at my body of work I want to be remembered as an educational leader that grew teachers into master teachers and/or high-quality educational leaders. That is how I can have the most impact on education as a whole. I would also love to be a part of educational change that will bring education into a new era of education because our current system is broken and educators need to fix it not state and federal legislators.

11). How do you have a work-life balance? What do you do for fun? 

Being a Principal is a lot of fun and I truly love what I do but I am also more than just an educator. I am also a husband, father, and now a PodCaster. Spending time with my family is super important to me. My wife’s Grandpa, who was also a Principal, told me that make sure you take time to spend with your family each week because the rigors of the job will take you away but you also need to have family time because they can get lost in the mix. I was told that early in my educational career and I have done my best to make sure I spend quality family time. So some things we like to do are have family game nights, movie nights, go camping, go hiking, go fishing, and go boating. These are the things we like to do to have fun as a family and is important for educational leaders to find their work-life balance so you are refreshed throughout the year and not just during the time students and teachers are away from the building. 

Leadership Styles to consider as your reflex about your own personal Leadership Style(s)!

Servant leadership is defined by Saglam & Alpaydin (2017), as “a leader that serves to contribute to the development and interest of others in order to accomplish the tasks and objectives comprising the primary purpose of the organization” (pgs. 106-107). A leader that serves his teachers and staff in order to accomplish the primary goals of the school building.

Transactional Leadership- Saeed and Mughal (2019) described transactional leadership, where a leader rewards employees for the completion of a task (pg.49). Sarros and Santora (2001) determined that transactional leadership is an economic exchange between the leader and follower that can be material or psychological need for work completed (pg. 388). Transactional leaders tend to compromise with followers by rewarding employees for a job well done either materialistically or psychologically. 

Transformational Leadership- Raj and Srivastava (2016) discussed how transformational leadership can empower and encourage employees to be open and try new things (pg. 201). Bass (1985) concluded that transformational leadership communicates a clear vision that challenges and empowers followers to be creative when facing new problems by fostering a supportive relationship built on trust (pgs. 31-37). Transformational leaders tend to build relationships with their employees and find ways to motivate them to achieve goals the employees may never think they could through a supportive relationship. 

Laissez-Faire Leadership- Khan and Saleem (2021) discussed Laissez-Faire Leadership (LFL) style where leaders do not set clear goals and do not have many expectations for their employees (pg.158). Khan and Saleem (2021) point out that the LFL style leaves the decision-making up to the employees and the employees make decisions they see fit with little to no direction from the leader (pg. 158-159). Robert and Vandenberghe (2020) discuss how Laissez-Faire Leaders do not focus on the relationship piece with their employees which tends to be a barrier to bringing employees together for a mutual goal of the organization (pg. 534). Laissez-Faire leaders tend not to build relationships with their employees and leave the decision-making up to the employee with little to no direction from the leader.

Authoritarian (Direct) Leadership- Dinham (2007) determined that authoritarian leadership is based on respecting positional authority and they tend not to consult with followers but expect orders to be followed without question (pg. 35). Harms et al. (2018) describe authoritarian leadership as the belief that they should dominate over the followers (pg. 117). Authoritarian leadership has its place and is considered one of the first types of leadership styles people may think of where the leader has complete control and the employees follow their direct orders with few questions or consulting with the leader.

Situational Leadership- is a contingency-based leadership model that consists of four common leadership styles. A Situational Leader employs one of four leadership styles that provide him or her with the highest probability of success in every situation they encounter. Those situations are a function of the task that needs to be performed, in conjunction with the task-related ability and willingness of the follower identified to perform it. Based on the objective assessment of those parameters, and with the responsibility of successfully and effectively influencing the follower, the leader responds to the situation with one of four leadership styles. Those styles are operationally defined by Task/Directive Behavior and Relationship/Supportive Behavior:

Achievement-oriented leadership is broken down into individual, behavioral, and contingent leaderships, which all define the leader's ability to achieve goals. 

Relationship-orientated leadership is broken down into transactional, inclusive, and feminist leadership, which all focused on how and why leaders and followers relate.  

Values-oriented leadership is broken down into ethical, transformational, and authentic leadership, which promotes change by acting in ways that are ethical and promoting core values and shows the leader as genuine.