Table 1: Background of Interviewee
The candidate chosen for this assignment is a Junior Lecturer with an experience of approximately four years. She teaches Oral Pathology in National- level private dental college that has been given recognition by the World Health Organization. She delegates lectures and conducts examinations for a class of approximately 75 students in Third year Dental college. Along with this she is also responsible for managing student records, educational excursions, laboratory work and managerial work of the department. She is under direct supervision of the Head of Department and on his behalf implements changes to curriculum. She provides instructional leadership along with up to date management skills. Professionally, she is a credited and practicing private Dental Surgeon with a profound knowledge of subject. She also intends on taking a sabbatical off work to gain further knowledge in Oral Pathology to help continue her professional development and raise the bar of teaching standards. There are four demonstrators that work directly under her along with managerial staff.
Personality, Behavior And Effects
It is mentioned in various literature that the following traits are essential for a true and inspiring leader, these traits are Intelligence, Self-Confidence, Energy, Persistence And Sound Technical Knowledge. According to Lord and Maher (1993, Andrews and Field, 1998) personal behaviour at work, personality traits and attitude at work determines what the followers perceive and how well they are involved in the success of the organization (Stogdill, 1974; House and Baetz, 1979 , Arnold and Randall et al, 2010). In lieu with the above mentioned criteria, the traits of the interviewee is described in the following table;
House, R.J. (1976). A 1976 theory of charismatic leadership.
In J.G Hunt & L.L Larson (Eds), Leadership: The cutting edge (pp 189-207).
Carbonale: Southern Illinois University Press
Having graduated from the same institution, the interviewee possesses sufficient knowledge about the educational system and the subject. She understands the communication networks and can adequately convey and delegate orders. She appears to be a confident and dominant personality, which the students look up to as a role model. This gives her the element of trust and acceptance followed by obedience. She works in joint collaboration with other staff and subordinates to achieve set goals, resolve conflicts and solve problems. Overall, this makes her a competent leader who is capable of achieving set goals and brings out the full potential of the students successfully.
STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
Upon completion of the interview, it was concluded that the interviewee used both transactional and transformational styles of leadership to get the desired results from her class. She makes it a point to engage her students in a particular task in such a manner so as to invoke their full potential. There are separate sessions in which there is teacher student interaction so that she can tap into the motives of students and better assist them in reaching their goals.
According to Arnold and Randall et al 2010 there should be a close supervision between team members and the leader to attenuate the gap between the leader and his subordinates. This tactic is being using by the interviewee successfully resulting in an overall improved grade average yearly. Accountability for student performance is critical for development of education. Thus, the interview endeavors to maintain standards of education by instilling a strict protocol. That includes austere follow-up of attendance, accountability of students for their grades and adequate interaction in class sessions. There is due reward for good performance thus encouraging the students, as well punishment for poor performance. This transactional style of leadership is also employed by the Head of Department. It offered adequate results however, for some students, intimidation and fear rendered them incapable of performing to their fullest potential. To overcome this inequality, the interviewee and the head of department collaborated ideas which resulted in implementing an increased interaction between student and teacher. This meant that students were provided with a clear vision and objectives. The range of skills and optimal level of diversity of the student body was taken into consideration to facilitate improvement. Their views were taken into due consideration and lessons thus modified. This resulted in a positive influence and is observed in the comparison of grades from previous years. This form of transformational leadership assisted in tapping the full latent ability of students and engaged them to the best of their capabilities. While the head of department encouraged the student on their performance, the interviewee filled the gap by promoting free ideas and using herself as an example to encourage them. This bridged the gap between teacher and student and resulted in improved grades, increased interaction and respect. With good performance, students felt more capable and confidence and this proved beneficial for them in clinical practice as well as other subject areas. The evident improvement of grades clearly depicted that this style of leadership was successful, thus, this was acknowledged by the Principal of the dental college and the Oral Pathology department was given a reward for improving the overall standard of education.
Discussion
The interviewee is not only a resource provider but, can be visualized as a mentor and supporter. Her personal relationship with students resulted in improved performance from the class. She not only opted for transactional but also used her charismatic personality to invoke a transformational style of leadership. This was readily accepted by Head of Department. This sense of autonomy directly enhanced productivity and teaching capabilities. The school leadership system is mostly a top-down hierarchal structure, however, in this case the collaboration between the Head of department and interviewee lead to evidence based improvement. Thereby, we can conclude that using both transactional and transformational styles of leadership are beneficial. It improves the communication between leader and sub ordinates, improves goal setting and performance along with response and conflict resolution. Resulting in overall improved performance. It is mentioned by Judge and Piccolo (2004), that most transactional and transformational leadership behavior are effective and relatively valid. They also emphasized that transformational leadership builds better reinforced relationships with criteria that reflects follower satisfaction and motivation than objective performance in transactional leadership. It can be said that transformational leadership yields better outcomes but in this case, both styles overlap each other therefore there is no conclusion on distinctive effects of each style.
References
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Arnold, J. and Randall, R. et al. (2010). Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace. 5th ed. England: Prentice Hall.
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Andrews, J. and Field, R. (1998). Regrounding the concept of leadership. Leadership and Organizational Development, 19 (3), p128-136.
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Northouse, P.G (2010). Chapter 9: Tranformational Leadership. In Leadership: Theory And Pactice (5th Edition) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
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Jude, T.A., & Piccolo, R.F. (2004). Tranformational And Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Test Of Their Relative Validity. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768
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