Leadership Styles Compared in an Educational System and Historical Context
When looking at leadership, many individuals have tried to create or mimic different styles to lead or force their subjects into order. Throughout history, this has created numerous different methods. These can range from absolutism to democratic republic, from laissez-faire to Marxism, and from authoritarianism to a servant. This paper will focus on seven different types of leadership: authoritarian, democratic, laissez-faire, transactional, transformational, situational, and servant. These different styles of leadership can be found throughout history and some are still practiced to this day. Individuals who have the power of being in charge of others can be found in governments, educational systems, the way in which a business is formed and managed, or a smaller scale like coaches of sports teams or a group leader of a project. From the outside looking in, viewers decide if one may be greater than the other. Depending what style this set leader has chosen will dictate the possibilities this country's organization will have and determine what the future will hold either success or failure. Leaders must be careful with their choice of leadership and understand the individuals they have authority over. If a leader chooses a style of dramatic change that does not benefit the individuals, then the leader will surely be met with defiance. If individuals do not have faith in the proposed method of leadership, then soon people will see a changing of the guards per say.
The first style of leadership that will be analyzed is authoritarian. With authoritarianism, this can be implemented in several different ways. These ways can consist of an oligarchy approach, an absolute approach, a dictatorship or totalitarian government, and a fascist regime. With that said, when looking at authoritarian leadership, it always comes down to one basic principle: total power. This type of leadership stops participants or subjects from having any say in the way things will take place. The leader is the end-all, be-all. According to Jan Brinn, “This style offers no opportunity for participant input; the leader makes all the decisions, critical knowledge is kept to themselves and they lay down the law”. From an educational standpoint, this can be seen as an overbearing administration. Without input, the administration dictates what kind of rules the student body and administration will follow. The administration will also enforce what will take place in each classroom and monitor the faculty in an overbearing way. The faculty will no longer be allowed to make decisions based on classroom behavior or assessments but rather what lessons are passed down to them from the admin and how the faculty should implement it.
As for looking at an authoritarian leadership among governments, ideology will be pushed through with biased laws and choices based on self-benefit, rather than population benefits. Several figures can be seen with this style of an approach in leadership such as: Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Hideki Tojo, and Fidel Castro. Each of these rulers would rule with an “Iron Fist” and control their subjects by either brute force or by the mass hysteria of opposing views. Another individual who would control his people by using both of these styles would be the founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong. Mao exhibits this leadership time and time again through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China. Mao was able to make his population forgo their private farm lands and begin to distribute them as communes. It was at this point Mao instructed the common people of China to begin an Industrial Revolution by building personal furnaces and smelting down metal from everyday tools. Instead of allowing engineers from the Soviet Union to come in and provide the blueprints, Mao took things into his own hands and dictated what the Chinese would do. Those who were forced to oversee the productions of each commune were actually being forced to meet quotas in order to avoid suffering any type of punishment. This would lead to the country-wide production of brittle metals that could not be used in any purpose and lead to a massive decline in food production. This event would lead to the deaths of 15-55 million Chinese deaths.
After a failed result of direct control of his people (authoritarian leadership), Mao quickly looked to grasp control of his population by the creation terror known as the Cultural Revolution. The purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to rid China of the four olds to create new followers for Mao Zedong. This would create a younger audience of subjects who would be more willing to subject to Mao authoritarian style of leadership without the memories of the hardship that many older Chinese individuals had occurred under Zedong. According to Patricia Buckley Ebrey, “the Cultural Revolution was to attack the Four Olds-- old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits--in order to bring the areas of education, art and literature in line with Communist ideology”. Mao Zedong wanted any trace of this to be destroyed and any individual who clanged onto the old ways to be disgraced and eliminated to allow more control over China. Mao was also able to dictate what his new, younger audience would do for an occupation, attending the countryside. If there was anyone who spoke out or questioned Mao Zedong, his followers of the Cultural Revolution known as the Red Guards, was expected to purge the offenders. This too, would lead to the deaths of millions.
The next leadership style that can be seen in business, as well as education, is known as laissez-faire. A French term meaning to allow people to do as they wish. Most commonly known within history as an approach for little to no government involvement inside the business world. Supporters of this ideology believe that government should only enter the influences of the economy when private property rights are in immediate danger or peace needs required reestablishment. The most notable leader under laissez-faire is Adam Smith.
Smith believed that government should not impose its will by issuing trade regulations, product regulations, fixed-cost pricing, and laws benefiting the workers within industries such as minimum wage. A method of letting, whatever happens, happens. If it can’t last and thrive then it won’t. New businesses will soon replace it and continue to work. As for an educational setting, this type of leadership is closely related to how Adam Smith believed governments should handle their economic system. The leader of the school like to put their trust on the faculty and staff that they will go above and beyond. This requires leadership from not engaging in micromanagement but instead installing the foundation and allow the faculty to go about it in their own way. Leadership in this situation will not get involved with things unless a major issue occurs, just like in Adam Smith’s belief. Doing so allows faculty to make their own decisions and solve their own problems, while the leader provides any needed resources and takes responsibility of overall actions within the school system.
The next leadership style that can be seen as a prominent component to success is known as the democratic style of leadership. This style now leads to more of an organizational decision making rather than a let it take its course or do as your told. Democratic leaders care about what their faculty and staff think about in different situations and their opinions on how to resolve any situation or future situation. This would require the school system to function as a body that allows anyone to come up with an approach and provide details of possibly implementing it, an open floor of discussions on the topic and proposal within a positive environment that allows constructive criticism, and the leader takin on more of a peacemaker mediator for the body. The leader can also establish groups to work together on different topics instead of requiring the entire body of staff showing up. The leader can either place certain staff members into groups that fit best for that particular topic or the leader can divide them up into particular groups known as departments or grade level grouping. This allows for the faculty to provide different perspectives, new ideas, and new solutions. In the end, it will still come down to the leader on if these practices will be instilled or passed upon until another time. However, in the meantime, the leader has set the standard for the faculty and staff to feel important and recognized, imperative to the future success of the school system, and progression with the times.
An example of this type of leadership that can be seen, is Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower from 1941 to 1945, was known as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in the European Theater of World War II. Eisenhower was tasked with managing several nations during the war, some of which were major powers such as: Great Britain, France's resistance fighters, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America, to name a few. Eisenhower’s main objectives as a leader were to bring these different nations to fight on the same page while still keeping them functioning as a successful body to win the war. With various backgrounds, different beliefs almost to an extreme, and everyone wanting their way implemented, Dwight D. Eisenhower was able to control his constituents with the method of democratic leadership. Eisenhower had the ability to be an authoritarian leader but instead worked extremely hard in making each nations commanders voices heard. Just like in the educational example of democratic leadership, Eisenhower too did not have to instill these plans but wanted to recognize his commanders, make each nation feel important, and in the end, no matter what would have gone wrong, Eisenhower as well took complete blame of what the results may have come out as instead of passing the blame down the chain of command.
As for a transactional approach to leadership, it is made of a system in which the leader provides the staff with rewards and punishments to reach the desired outcome. With a strict flow within a chain of command, the principal can often be viewed as just a boss who looks at a select teacher’s evaluations, teaching strategies being used, and state standards being reached. As for the teacher, they can quickly begin to feel as just a regular worker in any section of employment. They are not able to teach what they want when they want (personal syllabus) or able to dictate how they will teach the material or present the lesson. This can possibly cause teachers to reach the burnout stage or feel unimportant to administration on an individual aspect. The attempts for a principal to provide rewards on the desired behavior can help continue the flow of success, but once an undesired outcome results, it must be met with punishment by the administration. Just like students, if you’re met with negative feedback, eventually the administration could be met with a faculty who has become defiant. This will lead to larger problems and a breakdown between administration and faculty.
A modern example of transactional leadership can be found with Bill Gates. This computer programmer entrepreneur would be a cofounder of Microsoft. This business organization is now one of the largest and leading software companies throughout the world. With that said, Gates controlled the company as an organizational position by going to different locations of his company and continuing to evaluate them every so often. From there he would dictate what type of end goals would need to be established and ask difficult questions to see if the staff would be capable of succeeding. With success, Gates would praise them by positive praise, better benefits, and possible bonuses. However, if this section or individual within the corporation did not reach the desired goals, then they could be meet with harsh negative feedback, a write-up, demotion, or worse replacement.
Transformational leadership can often be viewed upon as the opposite of transactional leadership. Transformational leadership allows individuals to collaborate among each other to reach an end goal with the desired results that the faculty is deeply committed to achieving. This requires the leader to not hover over their employees, but rather delegate the responsibilities in order to reach the end goal. An educational setting under this leadership makes the teacher a specialized professional attempting to reach perfection in their own path, rather than in transactional leadership, where a teacher will find themselves as a regular employee that can be found in any employment. With transformational leadership, the end goal is not to just perfect everyone’s craft, complete a great year, or accept tremendous scores, but to instead always look at how each aspect of the school system can innovate and grow with the changing future. Just like businesses, the educational system is growing and meeting new challenges, and the student body changes throughout generations.
A modern example of transformational leadership can be viewed within Jeff Bezos of Amazon or Tim Cook of Apple. As for Jeff Bezos, who looked to encourage his employees to grow and perfect their job occupation through trust, and optimism, and promote employees for their creativity. Amazon first started out as an online marketplace for books and educational books at a cheaper rate than universities. However, just like in the educational example of transformational leadership, Bezos too wanted to progress with the ever-growing world of technology. That is why today, Amazon can be seen as one of the top leading and growing companies throughout the world. Now Amazon has expanded into online sales of electronics, food, clothing, etc. They now ship their products to their customers by the use of their own mailing system instead of relying on companies like UPS or FedEx. Bezos has even entered the streaming world with the introduction of Amazon Prime Video.
Another style of leadership that can be found in the educational system and the business world is referred to as situational leadership. Unlike the past leaderships that have been discussed throughout this paper, situational leadership is more of a flexible approach. This style requires the leader to adapt to the changing environment and the required needs of the organization. This style can be beneficial with the changing of the times. Leadership can either force their staff and employees to their desired conduct in hopes to increase the output or leadership can change its style of leadership with each situation and member of employment to get the best outcome possible. An example of situational leadership can be found with an individual known as George S. Patton. Patton was a major general for the United States military. He quickly rose through the ranks between the Great War and World War II. Patton was able to do this by changing his strategies each time depending on what the situation had called for. Patton would do the same with his soldiers. He would be seen as stern commander at times, a soldier general at others. Even towards the end of the given timeline above, Patton would try to control and incentivize his troops in a more physical authoritarian style.
The last style of leadership, it is known as a servant leader. According to the Center for Servant leadership, “this philosophy and set of practices can enrich the lives of individuals, build better organizations, and ultimately create a more caring world”. In other words, the leader doesn’t run a system by preaching or demanding instructions and results, but rather by doing it by example. In the style the leader places their self on equal footing as their staff and looks to serve the business and staff member first before ever expecting anything from anyone else. This requires leaders to care more for their employees rather than their expected or needed goals. This leader will go out of their way to see that their staff is able to continue to develop their skills to become better in their performance instead of expecting to start out as a professional and deliver negative feedback when results are not met. From and educational system or business organization, leaders apart of these will also look at how they can reach out to the community and look to improve the community as well so the enterprise will be able to improve with it. The leader is always looking to serve others and being a part of the process of building instead of just coaching or demanding. It is more likely with this style of leadership that you will see CEOs and principals out leading by example by performing the needed tasks, allowing themselves to serve their staff.
A modern example of a servant leader can be found within Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In a time of needed change throughout the United States and extreme behavior from an opposing side, some leaders would have found it more comforting to stay behind and lead by authoritarian leadership or other examples. However, Dr. King lead by example instead. He would not ask of his body of members to do something that he was unwilling to do. He preached nonviolence which could be seen as a difficult task during a time African-Americans were being met with harsh violence. With Dr. King putting himself there in the moment, acting out the desired actions, and living through the repercussions that his members too would face, would allow more to join and back the cause. Examples of his march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, sit in, and leading peaceful protests by example.
All seven of these leaderships can be found attempted inside a school system. Each has their own pros and cons, some more than others. Depending on which style of leadership is used will be the direct reasoning of what kind of output will be created and what type of morale will exist throughout the system or organization. This is why many believe that to achieve the desired goals as well as keep all of the morale uplifted throughout the faculty, more democratic leadership should be established. Each member wants to be recognized for their hard work and enjoy the atmosphere that is created within a democratic leadership, allowing staff members to feel as if their voice holds some weight. This can also be seen as beneficial to the administration by allowing work to be divvied up and passed down to the faculty to find better solutions or new ideas. Still in the end, it will be up to the administration what rules and programs that will be attempted, but now they will have other opinions and new ideas that they themselves may have over looked or may have been stuck in place with. Just allowing voices to be heard can create a more open environment for the faculty, allowing the desire to collaborate with others, and to continue their own education to become better. However, if a leader is incapable of installing whichever desired leadership style, then quickly the respect for the administration will be lost among the faculty. A leader must be able to see where their own strengths may lay and which will be best for the organization depending on the community they are in and the problems at hand.
