How Prepared Are Employees For Leadership Positions

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The student body in universities have changed significantly during the last half century. The enrolments rates for female and male university students are about even at 50% for each gender group but in some educational institutions the female rate surpasses the male enrolment rate (HigherEducationStatisticsAgency, 2012). With the number of female student bodies increasing year by year, it might be assumed that leadership in education institution would reflect the demographics of this increased majority. However in reality this has not been the case. According to the statistics shown, 44.5% of all academic staff in the UK were female (HigherEducationStatisticsAgency, 2011/2012). But when it comes to senior positions such as professorships, only 20.5% were held by women. Similarly, across all other roles in educational organisation, including management and services, women are well represented but again feature poorly in leadership positions. This means men still continue to dominate in the most coveted leadership positions throughout the education profession.

Despite equal opportunities legislation and a gender gap continues to persist in this area of academic profession. Women are still at a disadvantage in becoming leaders. Although there is a trend of a gradually increase in the proportion of women leaders, there is not a significant change (Coleman, 2002). Moreover, Shirley Hufstedler who is the first American secretory of education said, "The large gender gap in education leadership reflects the large gender gap in every other profession and business." The reasons for the gender gap have long been debated and many theories have been advanced to explain the existence of the gender gap in leadership and the different leadership styles between men and women.

Masculine management model is characterised by power, competitiveness, hierarchical authority, lead from front, higher control of leader, unemotional and analytic problem solving. On the other hand, feminine mode of management is characterised by cooperativeness, collaboration of managers and subordinates, lower control for the leader, and problem solving based on empathy and rational (Loden, 1985). This leadership stereotype theory of Loden was actually first developed earlier by Sargent, Hennig and Jardim. They raised the ideas of sex-differentiated managerial behaviour including those who are managers in organisations (Sargent, 1981, Hennig and Jardim, 1979).

On the other hand, most researchers on social science have generally agreed the theory that in fact there are no reliable evidences to prove the differences in the ways how women and men lead. Although a few of them have acknowledged that there are some evidences for gender differences in leadership style among research participants. Those researches have suggested that there are few differences in the leadership and management styles of men and women (Bartol and Martin, 1986p. 278, Brown, 1979) but most of them have agreed that women and men who occupy leadership roles in organisations behave in similar way in leadership styles (Nieva and Gutek, 1981, Stogdill and Bass, 1981;p. 499, Kanter, 1977). In the opinions voiced in popular and social scientific writings is the fact that these two have based their conclusions on quite different kinds of data. Authors such as Loden based their conclusions primarily on their own experience in organisations as well as on the impressions they learned from interviews with practicing managers. Social scientists typically based their conclusions on more formal studies of managerial behaviour in which data were gathered via questionnaires or behavioural observations and analysed. In the views of social scientists personal experience and interviews are not accepted in their conclusions. They only accept data from more formal empirical research on leadership.

Even in recent years, there are still some people believe that males were better suited than females to become leaders. It is because masculine leadership style tend to be more autocratic and directive while feminine leaders tend to take more democratic and participative approach (Powell, 2011). The social expected the women to grow with some specific personality, for example, ‘submissiveness, passivity, avoidance of aggression and competition and reticence to take risk’ (Fondas, 1993).

In summary, the background issue is relating to the gender are the most pronounced in the disparity between numbers women or men better as academic leaders.

1.2: The background of the research organisation

Limited company (A) is an organisation that provides quality assurance for all aspects of the educational organisation. Limited company (A) is there to help improve employees’ knowledge, skill set and attitude in order to refine their business performance to their customers. Limited company (A) provides courses on the most comprehensive range of technical, business applications, project management and service management, and management & personal development. As a department of Limited company (A), Business School (A) developed a partnership with the University XX to deliver degree courses that are directly relevant to students’ studies and future employability. On the other hand, the other department of Limited company (A) which is adult IT education department that provides short IT course with proof of certification for those people who at work and need to develop their IT skills through these programmes.

Generally, in organisations, when people talk about leadership, they are usually referring to the person or persons in the top most senior positions who have the most power and influence within the organisation. However, department managers are also the formal leaders. They have to be responsible for the work of the members that are under them and everyday activities of the organisation. Even though they don’t have as much power or influence as the senior managers they still have the power to hire or fire staff, inspire and guide the staff that are already working in their department. Thus, making department managers leaders within each area and department with the organisation.

1.3: Research questions

The educational access, opportunity and experience of educators in British educational institutions is influenced and often limited by their gender. Gender discrimination impacts the academic, emotional and economic lives of educators. The pivotal role educational leader play in how to improve the issue of institutional gender discrimination makes it essential to examine cultural artifacts for insights into the expressed and implied values, beliefs and commitments of future educational leaders regarding gender issues.

This study examines gender focused educational leadership in the last decade as indicated by the dissertation title. As we became aware of the problems of the gender inequality in leadership positions in an educational institution. The research that has been carried out on an educational organisation (A) is to provide a systematic method, quantitative and qualitative integration results of the current view point from the employees in which the leadership styles of men and women were compared and statistical analyses were performed on the resulting data. A set of research questions are listed below:

What are the current satisfaction rates of the managers and the leaders in both Business School (A) and IT Training Department (A) from their employees?

Which gender of leaders/managers have the higher satisfactory rate from their employees on average in Business School (A) and IT Training Department (A)?

Why is there a gender gap in educational organisation?

What value do leaders place on different aspects of school leadership generally?

What do employees think of their leader’s characters in respect of their leadership styles in Business School (A) and IT Training Department (A)?

What are the ways that management of Business School (A) and IT Training Department (A) can do to improve effectively employee satisfaction to their leadership?

How do the leaders with different gender affect their employees’ working styles? The management advantages and disadvantages of each gender leading style.

What specific knowledge or skill about best practice in leadership do employees suggest their leaders to learn so they can improve to be a better leader?

What professional development activities add significant value to the work of educational leader?

How do different leaders perceive their leadership roles and what value do they place on them?

How prepared are employees for leadership positions?

These questions focus primarily on aspects of the view points from the employees of their leader’s leadership capability and perceptions of school leaders, rather than on the leadership capacity of the schools within which they work. The questions also link with elements of different leadership styles of different genders. In particular, they address issues that connect with how best to make provision for school leadership development.

1.4: Aim and objectives of the study

The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between gender and leadership in educational business industry.

To differentiate whether different gender lead to different leadership style behaviours can be identified in a sample of educational organisation (A)

To differentiate impact of different gender of leadership of education administration on educational organisation at both the school reputation and school ranking.

To differentiate impact of different gender of school principals on employees’ self-perceptions of satisfaction with their principal, and employees’ self- perceived effectiveness to produce desirable educational outcomes

To identify the unique leadership challenges and opportunities of women facing in educational industries.

To understand how gender plays a role in organisation, personal and society as advancement or obstacle.

To develop more effective strategies for managing multiple departments

To learn how successful woman negotiate for what they need to be an effective leader.

To examine the relation between gender of school principals, school learning environment constructs and antecedent variables; and identify, using quantitative and qualitative data gathered from respondents, leadership strategies that enhance teachers’ perceptions of school learning environment, and teacher job satisfaction.

1.5: Hypothesis

A several of hypothesis were developed to serve as the basis for critically analysing both the quantitative and qualitative data collected during the investigation.

People always think that male and female leaders have different leadership styles and working performances. Even in recent years, there are still some people believe that males were better suited than females to become leaders. It is because women tend to employ a more democratic, participative style while men tend to take a more autocratic, directive approach (Powell, 2011). The society expects that women to grow with some specific personalities, for example, ‘submissiveness, passivity, avoidance of aggression and competition and reticence to take risk’ (Fondas, 1993). The main prediction of this study is that gender-stereotypic differences in leadership style are less pronounced in organisational studies (of educational organisation (A)) comparing occupants of the same managerial role than in leadership studies of other types. It is because the specific characters of the female personality make them more suitable than men to be the educational organisations leader. Beyond this prediction, our purposes as reviewers are primarily descriptive and exploratory, even though other predictions might follow from the issues we have discussed. For example, if, as suggested, female managers often face a less supportive environment than male managers and these women might strive so hard to overcome anti-female prejudices that they behave counter stereotypically as a result. The ratings of leaders' behaviour could produce findings that are more stereotypic than those produced by measures grounded more firmly in behaviour. Rather than set forth a series of speculative hypotheses that take these and other considerations into account, we prefer to present our review and to discuss such issues as they become relevant to interpreting our findings.

1.6: Summary

This chapter outline the problem, aims, hypotheses and research question to be addressed in the present research. The next chapter describes the research methodology that was employed to address the hypotheses and research questions posed.

Chapter 2: Literature review

2.0: Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to review literature to the present investigation in order to place the focus areas of this study – the relationship between gender and school leadership.

2.1: Definition of leadership

In an organisation, leadership usually defines as the ability to influence other people to move towards and achieve the organisational objectives (Garfield, 1992, Wilcox and Ebbs, 1992, Wall et al., 1992, Covey, 1991). The U.S.Army had mentioned that "Leadership is influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation -- while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization"(U.S.Army., October 1983). Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. (Clark, 1997). It is quite similar to the definition of leadership that defined by Northouse. He thought that leadership is a process in which an individual inspire a group of people to achieve a common goal. Leadership and its influence are very important and essential to every organisation (Northouse, 2007,p.3). A good leader will bring a positive influence to the organisation so that the organisation could grow and expand effectively by using the right strategy (Bennis and Nanus, 1997, Bryman, 1992, Roueche et al., 1989, Gleazer, 1980, Bolman and Deal, 1991). A strong leader would bring strong impact to the life of his/her followers and his/her company’s future.

Earlier in this study, it is stated that manager is the leadership of his or her team. The differences between leader and managers is "Leader are people who do the right things and managers are people who do things right." (Bennis and Nanus, 1997,p.18) This is a reciprocal relationship between leadership and management but leadership are not always good managers and managers are not always good leaders. (Brunn, 1993, P.10)

Two leadership theories have become dominant in the literature. They can be envisioned as process leadership and trait leadership. The Process Leadership is that the Leaders perform the process by applying their knowledge and skills of leadership (Jago, 1982). However, there is also a leadership called Trait Leadership we know that can affect our actions. It is called Trait Leadership because in that concept it was commonly believed that leaders were born rather than made. The two types of leadership, process and trait leadership are shown in the graph below (Northouse, 2007,p.5)

trait_process_leadership.png

Figure 2.1: process and trait leadership (Northouse, 2007).

The opening quote of this paper listed only one of many definitions of leadership. This paper will list a few more definitions to start off and these definitions will form the basis of our understanding as we tackle the remainder of the process of determining the correlation between leadership effectiveness and gender. Some common definitions of leadership include the following: The creative and directive force of morale (Munson and Miller, 1921) or this definition is the process by which an agent induces a subordinate to behave in a desired manner" (Bennis, 1959). Yet another definition is as follows, —The presence of a particular influence relationship between two or more persons" (Hollander and Julian, 1968). Still another reads, —Directing and coordinating the work of group members" (Fiedler, 1967). Leadership is

Also an interpersonal relation in which others comply because they want to, not because they have to" (Merton, 1968). —Transforming followers, creating visions of the goals that may be attained, and articulating for the followers, the ways to attain those goals" (Tichy and Devanna, 1986, Bass, 1985) Lastly, leadership is —Actions that focus resources to create desirable opportunities" (Campbell, 1991).

2.2 Educational Administration

Nowadays, every educational institution orbits around a diverse set of goals, programs and operating rules and procedures. The goals of most educational groups in the western nations are knowledge of making, enforcement, and evaluation of policy (Maxcy, 1991). Educational administration is a network which sought to secure a balance in the name of the public interest.

  

Leadership in education can be seen as a process and product which powerful groups are able to sustain and control their interests. Good leadership should be able to smooth transmission of knowledge between the different departments but this is not always the case as some departments hold on to their knowledge and don’t pass on this causing a breakdown in communication and thus making this an internal challenge for leaders, head teachers, department heads in trying to achieve their goals (Gunter, 2001,p12-14). 

Another challenge to the educational institution is external factors such as legislation, economic crisis and political involvement. All these factors need to be considered by the leadership so the administration can strive and be successful and also be adapted (Gunter, 2001,p.15-20). 

Leadership is about the location of entrepreneurial behaviours in the roles and tasks for senior and middle management posts. Management systems in schools are designed to control and deliver education outcomes and goals thus Head teachers have to make a distinction between ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ conceptually, if not always in practice. 

Head teachers are being positioned as leaders or mangers in which distinctions between these 2 processes are made in order to facilitate the separation of the leadership elite from the everyday workers/workforce. Leaderships are being defined around notions of controlling uncertainty through charismatic behaviours and strategic tasks, while management is about the everyday maintenance of running the university (Gunter, 2001,p28-29).

The school management was used to be mainly the capacity of head teachers to keep other teachers and students in a state of subordination before (Grace, 1995;p.29). After war there was an evolution of the change and belief in the connection between education and the democratic culture. This was the time when the relationship between the head teacher and the staff was based on educational values and ethical issues of working with children. Education administration was about supporting educational objectives and the status within the profession came from pedagogy. However, the comprehensive school made the internal arrangements for the organisation of teaching and learning more complex; children are increasingly organised in mixed ability classes, and schools grew in size (Grace, 1995). The education was led to a period of social democratic managements in which activities were still rooted in values 

 

The author Fondas had talked about the relationship between gender and leadership. She identified that, generally, the word ‘leader’ refers to those who are working in a higher position in an industrial, governmental, educational, political or any other professional organizations (Fondas, 1993). In fact, she made a conclusion after gathering enough information from reports, "historically, gender precluded most females from becoming leaders in such organizations"; therefore, as a result, people believed that males were better suited than females to become leaders. 

 

People always feel that there are distinctive differences between male leaders and female leaders. For example, in several renowned studies, we can easily notice the difference between males and females in their decision making styles. Women has been classified as who tend to employ a more democratic, participative style while men tend to take a more autocratic, directive approach (Powell, 2011). And this theory is based on both academic research and observations of real leaders. 

 

When people study on the topic of relationship between gender and leadership, their main concern is why there are differences between male and female leaders. People believe that is one of the main reasons that cited for the low proportion of women leaders. However, it is not the only one reason. There are still some other reasons that lead to the outcome of the low proportion of women leaders. In Fondas’ study, she found that one of the reasons is that "females’ life aspirations are diminished by their early childhood socialization in the nuclear family (Fondas, 2010). Generally speaking, the nuclear family defines appropriate gender behaviour to their children. Men and women were risen up by different expectation. For girls, in general, the public world would expect their female character grow to be "submissiveness, passivity, avoidance of aggression and competition, reticence to take risk, and other qualities our culture considers – ‘feminine’." One research reveals that, even in high school, boys would get more support and encouragement from their parents to pursue their goals than girls would when they both have the same college and career aspirations. People believe that boys’ specific character would let them achieve their goals much easier and become more successful leaders as well.  

 

The situation of female leaders had been improved recently for women especially in most of the developed countries in last decades. However, throughout the human history, people barely can find a well-known successful woman as a leader of big corporations, legislative organisations or monetary institutions which have great impacts on our society. That’s because the unique character of female, their attentive, patient, gentle and sensitive make them more suitable for the education industry. Therefore, as a result, there are more female teachers and lecturers than male.  

 

2.3 Qualities of Effective Leaders

The basic characteristics of successful leader are to be independent, assertive dominant, ambitious, and self-sufficient, risk taker and be a motivator.

An effective leader is someone who can motivate a person or a group people to accomplish a goal, task or objective set by them and without them having to be heavily involved. We can liken this to a sporting team in which the team comprises of individual players each with certain set of skills who have been honed into a finely tuned instrument by virtue of the coach orchestrating them into a cohesive unit to achieve the goal. In this manner, and only with the correct and right motivation and care, will this group of individuals gel into a team and accomplish more together than they ever could as individuals.

With the above framework set in place, one would argue that leadership effectiveness is not gender-specific, but there seem to be many attributes that are found in both males and females that lend themselves to becoming an effective leader.

2.3: Different types of leadership style

Leadership style is the specific way of leaders to provide guidance, implement plans, and motivate employees in the organizations. Leadership style is to permanent and continuous patterns of behaviour when people working with and through others, used and must be understood by the people (Moghimi, 1998). Moreover it is an approach the leader to influence his/her followers for purposes uses (Rezayian, 2006). There are many different types of leadership. For example, ethical leadership, servant leadership, spiritual leadership, authentic leadership, transformational leadership, distributed leadership and so on but this dissertation is only focused on managerial leadership, transformational leadership, instructional leadership, participative leadership, distributed leadership and transactional leadership which are the most popular types of leadership styles in educational industries. Every different kind of leadership has its own advantages and disadvantages.

2.3.1: Managerial leadership

Managerial leadership is the most common type of leadership. This kind of leadership focuses on carrying out functions, tasks and behaviours and are carried out competently in the work of others within the organisation (Leithwood et al., 1999; p.14). Authority and influence are allocated to formal positions in proportion to the status of those positions in the organisational hierarchy and most members in the organisation are rational (Bush, 1995).

Caldwell argues that managers and leaders of self-managing schools must be able to develop and implement a cyclical process involves goal setting; needs identification; priority-setting; planning; budgeting; implementing; and evaluating (Caldwell, 1992;p.16-17).

It is significant to note that this type of leadership does not include the concept of vision, which is central to most leadership models. Managerial leadership focuses on managing existing activities successfully rather than implementing new ideas to make the school better. This approach is very suitable for school leaders as trying to implement new changes will have to go through the bureaucratic hierarchy to have approval but this will take a long and not necessary be approved. (Taylor, 1911). Managerial leadership has certain advantages, notably for bureaucratic systems, but there are difficulties in applying it too enthusiastically to schools and colleges because of the professional role of teachers. If heads and lectures do not ‘own’ innovations but are simply required to implement due to externally imposed factors and changes then they are likely to do so without any enthusiasm, leading to possible failure of the system (Bush, 2003:46).

2.3.2: Distributed leadership

The term 'Distributed leadership' is the new trend in the leadership theory and the study of school improvement recently. It is defined as "one of the forms of leadership that involves all the different aspects of collaboration experienced by the heads, teachers, and members of the school's improvement team in leading the school's development" (Heck and Hallinger, 2009). This new leadership style is receiving lots of attention recently and a continued growing support by other researchers. Two alterations in the perspectives of educational researchers and policy makers have been shown by previous research results. First of all, there is an increased curiosity in how leadership is shared or 'distributed' among administrators, teachers, and parents in schools (Leithwood et al., 2009, Spillane, 2006, Gronn, 2002).The theory of distributed leadership is firstly concerned with the organizing leadership at all the levels of the organization; it is not just relying on leadership from the top. It is about engaging the many rather than the few in leadership activity within the school and actively distributing leadership practice (Harris, 2008). The point here is about leadership practice, not leadership functions. A distributed leadership model is premised on the mutual effects of a lot of different leaders rather than the actions of an individual leader.

Diagram 2.9: Distributed leadership process (Resourcebank)

http://resourcebank.sitc.co.uk/Resources/ip-leadership/Site/images/diagrams/Figure-8-1.gif

Distributed leadership has its own remarkable disadvantages. The distributed leadership is a exchanging and communicating information system and process for the organisation to learn and develop. It means the distributed leadership cannot be forced in the network or empowered. Therefore, it also shows that the distributed leadership only can be disturbed but not able to controlled for (Spillane et al., 2001). However, the distributed leadership is not necessarily or intrinsically good thing. It depends on the case or the real situation at that moment. In the very first place, it is possible for distributed leadership to be counter-productive, particularly if it is equated with the simplistic notion of everyone leading. Thus, when distributed leadership suggest that everyone within the group has the ability and capacity for leadership, in practice, leadership will progress in accordance with the needs of the organisation. It is impossible for everyone to lead the group at the same time. It will depend on actual situation, need and capability. Plus, some members may participate in leadership activities more than others. Clearly, it can be engineered by offering new opportunities to lead, by generating broad based leadership and by providing the creative spaces for dialogue and discussion within the network. "Inevitably distributed leadership will look different in different contexts. It will reflect the inherent diversity and variability of activity within and across networks" (Hargreaves and Fink, 2006).

2.3.2: Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership theory is very inclusive; it contains widely multi-level angles basic point of views of leadership process. It is a very theoretical and practical to the leadership theory that transformational leaders and their followers help each other to achieve a higher level of morale and motivation through the power of their vision and personality (Burns, 2010). Transformational leaders gather trust, respect and administration from their followers (Bass and Riggio, 2006). There are four components including intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation and idealised influences. All leaders with these factors usually have strong values and ideals, they can encourage employees to have reciprocal co-operation and similar struggle beyond their own personal interest successfully, in order to move towards and achieve the team's greater goals (Allix, 2000, Chirichello, 1999).Therefore, transformational leadership happens when the transformational leader takes a visionary position and inspires people to follow them with this new vision. Higher levels of personal commitment to organisational goals and greater capacities for accomplishing those goals are assumed to result in extra effort and greater productivity (Leithwood et al., 1999;p.9).

Transformational leadership involves eight activities (Leithwood, 1994):

• building school vision;

• establishing school goals;

• providing intellectual stimulation;

• offering individualised support;

• modelling best practices and important organisational values;

• demonstrating high performance expectations;

• creating a productive school culture; and

• developing structures to foster participation in school decisions.

Transformational leadership is essential for autonomous schools (Caldwell and Spinks, 1992; p.49-50). As with all the other kinds of leadership styles, there are some advantages and disadvantages of implementing transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is based on inspiring employees to do good work by setting a great example as a leader. This theory believes that people can raise, improve themselves into a higher level of efficiency and productivity through positive motivation from their peers. Moreover, why transformational leadership stands out from other leadership styles is because it has the ability to quickly appraise a company's current circumstances and conceive a plan for growth or improvement within a short space of time. The style also has great abilities to deal with challenging company situations because these leaders have an excellent vision to see the bigger picture and where the future of the company is heading towards.

Transformational leadership‘s weaknesses are also significant. First of all, the transformational leadership does not take situational dynamics into consideration and assumes that all employees want to work together towards a larger goal. Secondly Transformational approaches are not very effective in situations like if employees do not have the necessary skills set or experience to finish a task or are not motivated enough to execute without a prompt or tangible reward. The outcomes of transformational leadership changing actions, goals of the organisation will cost the organisation in the short term as employees don’t like change when they have been use to a process for a long period of time. They need a period of time to adjust. Transformational leaders must have enough time and energy to build trust and convincing others to believe there would be a great future by sharing their vision. Organizations would hope to achieve instant results by installing a transformational leader are likely to be frustrated and disappointed. Third aspect, the transformational leadership theory explains the "what" but they don’t have enough details about the "how." They only give a little information about how a leader should articulate and communicate his/her vision and empower their followers. Last of all point, in the transformational leadership theory, they are left out the explanations of transformational leadership strategy and mission.

2.3.3: Participative leadership

The theory of Participative leadership is democracy: Workers are able to input into managerial decisions---although the final decision is still down to the manager (Leithwood et al., 1999;p.12). This model which lets others have a say in decisions rather than managers just implementing them increases school effectiveness as employees feel they are part of the organisations; participation is justified by democratic principles; and in the context of site-based management, leadership is potentially available to any legitimate stakeholder (Leithwood et al., 1999;p.12).

The participative approach is very important because this makes staff bonding together and eases the pressures on school heads as everyone is working together thus lessons the burden of leadership will be less if leadership functions and roles are shared out instead of all being tasked by one individual (Sergiovanni, 1984; p.13).

2.3.4: Transactional leadership

Transactional leadership is when the relationships with leaders and teachers are based upon exchanges for an valued resource (Bush and Bush, 2003). Teacher interactions between administrators are usually episodic and short-lived and are limited to the exchange value and transaction (Miller and Miller, 2001;p.182) .

Transactional leadership is defined as an exchange process (Miller and Miller, 2001). Exchange is an established strategy for members of an organisation. Heads are the principle authority in schools, but the head requires the co-operation of teachers to secure the effective management of the school. An exchange may secure benefits for both parties so that the target and goals of the school are met. The major limitation of such a transaction is that staff/employee will not continue with this participation and involvement once the transactional arrangement period is over.

As Miller and Miller’s definition implies, transactional leadership does not produce long-term commitment to the values and vision being promoted by school leaders.

Instructional leadership

Instructional leadership differs from the other models reviewed above. It is because it focuses on the direction of influence, rather than visions, goals and values set up by the school itself.

The increasing emphasis on managing teaching and learning as the core activities of educational institutions has led to this approach being endorsed, notably by the English National College for School Leadership, which includes it as one of its ten leadership propositions.

Instructional leadership is mainly concerned with teaching and learning, including the professional learning of teachers as well as student growth (Southworth, 2002; p.79).

Instructional leadership focuses on learning, teaching and the behavior of how teachers work with students. A leader influence is to target at students and what they are leaning via the teachers. This emphasis is mainly on the direction and impact to the students rather than direct influence process itself.

Instructional leadership is very important as it targets the schools central activities mainly teaching and learning, however this leadership does not take into account other aspects of school life, such as sport, socialisation, student welfare, and self esteem (Bush and Bush, 2003;p.16-17). For all schools management is important because it provides a supportive framework for teaching and learning.

Good management is an essential aspect of any education service, but its central goal is the promotion of effective teaching and learning and to maximize student’s prospects and knowledge.

2.4: The theory of gender and leadership in educational business

Leadership in education industry requires some very significant, important particularities. A leader must set the direction for his/her educational business organization and the leader must equip those he/she leads his/her employees to go into the direction he/she has set. He/she must design the organization he/she leads around certain instruction. This involves clear communication of his/her vision, wise investment of resources, focus upon the goal, development of relationships and reference to the evidences of success as they occur. Several theories of education leadership provide the means to achieving these ends (Cleary).

First, a transformational leader typically has a charismatic vision and personality which is able to inspire his followers to accept changes at their school (Hay, 2006). This leader performs as a moral agent who raises consciousness about professional practices and values in the school. He/she encourages and promotes educational creativity and innovation and develops a sense of ownership by motivating others to commit and put effort to his vision. He/she does this by taking the specific needs of those who answer to him/her into consideration, thereby empowering them to change.

Second, a strategic leader knows the context in which his school operates and what it does well, and uses those strengths to leverage change. He understands how to adapt the organisation of the school and its staff. He has the ability to identify threats and turn them into opportunities (Lee, 2003).

Third, a distributed leadership is shared leadership. It takes the view that because essential knowledge is held by many individuals, it makes sense to distribute leadership responsibilities. Staff, resources and the school's structure are interwoven in pursuit of a common vision that has meaningful and attainable goals and shared values (Burniske and Barlow, 2004). This builds staff commitment and cooperation and strengthens the collective identity. The result is that more attention can be paid to more aspects of the school's organization, because people specialize in what they do best.

2.5: Managers and their leadership

In an organization, when people talk about leadership, usually they are speaking of the person in the top position and have the highest power to the organization. That is what people called as the leader. The leader is the person who affects the other people’s behaviours and working performances. The leader would influence his/her employees to achieve the specified organizational goals in a given situation. One the other hand, the manager could be seen as the person who works to supervising the employees or departments to ensure these staffs or departments could conduct the appointed jobs as what they required to do. In general, people believe that the words ‘leadership’ and ‘manager-ship’ are two totally different terms (Warner, 2008). They have different functions in the company. And also they have very specific and disparate characteristics. The following chart show us some detail of their different characteristics.

Table 2.10: The characteristics of leader and manager

http://www.leanexpertise.com/MTL/LeanOffice/Images/NewManagerLeaderFeatures.jpg

( According to: Diana Mora, 2009, < Leadership and Management Are They The Same??>, http://www.leanexpertise.com/MTL/LeanOffice/Module04LeanOfficeKaizen.html )

However, Henry Minzberg developed a theory named management roles theory. The Minzberg’s management roles theory is a subversion of classic management theory. The management roles theory divided the manager’s work into ten different kinds of role – figurehead, liaison, leader, monitor, disseminator, spokesman, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. The upcoming picture gives a brief introduction to these ten roles (Mintzberg, 1973).

Table 2.11: Mintzberg's Ten Management Roles (LondonManagementCentre)

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Managers are the formal leaders of an enterprise; they have to be responsible for the work of the members in the organization. Therefore, at this point, the managers constitute the leadership role at this point. Some of these managing actions directly involved in the leadership relationship. Usually, the managers are responsible for hiring, training, inspiring and guiding the staffs that working under them in the organization. Managers have to find out some ways to achieve harmony between the employees’ personal needs and organization’s goals. In Mitzberg’s management roles theory, we can clearly see the huge impact of the managers as the role of the leader. The formal power gives the managers the powerful potentially influence. As the role of being the leader, the manager has his/ her own power and leadership influence to the organization and the employees.

Even they are not the traditional kind of leader, but they have strong power to control and run the organization. They have right to hire, train, inspire and guide the staffs that working in their departments. Thus, the managers are also having their leadership in the organization. And of course, different manager might have different types of leadership style.