by Patrick Creed
When running a language school, how we lead our organisation and what approaches we take in our leadership are key to the success of the educational establishment we find ourselves in. There are many management areas to consider when running a school that include resource management, risk management, communications and planning , and how to best guide and lead your team to achieve the outcomes you want for your organisation, your staff, and your students.
Management and Decision Making
Individual team members in a smaller organisation can be given responsibility and allowed to make decisions on their own, but always with a need for centralised reporting or recording of actions. This type of leadership style works well with teams that are well established, have good experience working together in the past and can guide and manage their own work with an understanding of the outcomes required.
In a more complex organisation structure, there is a need for far more management and control, and a clear reporting line, alongside clear communication channels for all staff involved.
Different management approaches may include a democratic management style, with team decision-making and flexibility for all staff in their decision-making capacities (Muller et. al., 2010). Managers may take a bureaucratic approach, with little room for discussion and team decision-making, where managers see the need to make decisions, and the job needs to be done. This is a more direct decision-making leadership approach.
Problem solving is a key aspect that needs to be addressed in any school environment, alongside providing direction to team members when driving progress within the organisation. Any manager must seek input and knowledge from their team, as seeking advice is generally beneficial. This is especially true when consulting with staff who may have specific expertise and knowledge to aid informed decision making. Schools must develop policies on knowledge management and sharing and incorporate this into their quality assurance documentation (Creed, 2024). The qualities of modern leadership can be categorised under quotients or characteristics that may include intelligence, digital, emotional, cultural and social abilities.
All managers in all organisations need to take control of the workflow and make decisions, with input from others. This involves team members taking responsibility, and the manager making decisions based on their input. Managers should always seek information when analysing and solving problems, and give people recognition for contributing to solutions. While any manager should not be involved in decision-making alone where expertise can easily be sourced from elsewhere e.g. feedback from teaching staff or syllabus reflections by students, it is important that work processes are clear, and decisions are made rather than endlessly avoided.
Leadership Styles
Leadership styles to support management can vary.
The two most common leadership approaches feature directive behaviour — setting goals; telling and showing people what to do, when, and how to do it; and providing frequent feedback on results.
The other is supportive behaviour – listening, facilitating self-reliant problem solving, encouraging, and asking for input (Nguyen, 2019).
In many educational organisations there can be an absence of key leadership competences, perhaps due to inexperienced leaders or overly burdensome workloads. Management Quotient dimensions of leadership should include good communications, empowering the team, achieving outcomes, and managing resources (Dulewicz and Higgs, 2005). These take time and space to implement, however. A communications strategy is very useful to support any leadership style, and all stakeholders (staff, students, parents, agents etc.) need to be involved and kept informed as to what is going on.
Resource management is also an area that may need to be addressed. In particular human resource management with a focus on relationship management is always needed, and must be developed on an ongoing basis, to build strong bonds within the organisation and positively influence organisational outcomes (Goleman et. Al., 2002).
Leadership and Power
Any leadership comes with power and managers need to show ability and vision about where the organisation needs to go. They need to listen to and question what has been presented to them, and empower the team around them to focus on organisational goals.
A strong basis for the sources of power of leaders is provided by French and Raven (1959), and their five power bases for formal authority. Each of these power bases has pros and cons and leaders should draw from each as needed to fully support the staff within the organisation to achieve their goals, and those of the organisation as a whole.
| POWER | NATURE | SOURCE | PROS | CONS |
| Legitimate | Organisational | Given from a position of authority in the organisation | Derives power from hierarchy and this is known by the team and the member’s position within the hierarchy | Team may not respect this as a reason to do tasks and may migrate towards a leader with more expertise within the team |
| Reward | Organisational | Managers influencing future professional challenges for team members is viewed as an important source of positive attitudes (Dunne et al. 1978) | Team is motivated by rewards e.g. higher salary | Team may need more motivation that fits with their personal goals and not be interested in rewards put forward |
| Coercive | Organisational | Based on the fact that the leader can punish or impose a penalty on the team | Team will work to achieve milestones as there are consequences if they do not | Team may feel threatened and not do their best work as a form of protest and rejection of power |
| Expert | Personal | Based on the fact that the manager is highly skilled and knowledgeable via reputation, credentials, or actions (Taucean et al. 2016) | People respect knowledge and what they can learn from leader | Team members may have better expertise and need recognition of this within the working group |
| Referent | Personal | Comes from being well respected and liked by the team. Inherently more subjective as it is based on individuality rather than formal authority (Singh 2009) | People like the leader and want to work to help them achieve goals | Leader needs to achieve outcomes from team members who may not like them and cannot rely on reference alone |
Two additional categories of power also exist:
Connection power is where a person attains influence by acquaintance or connection with a powerful person and is very focused on networking. This power can be taken away very quickly if something breaks down (e.g. relationship fracture) with the higher power.
Information power is where a person possesses information that is needed or wanted. It would not be a long-term power source – imagine how many leaders lost their information power overnight with first the advent of search engines and more recently with generative AI.
In all organisations there are power plays and politics, so building your power base and maintaining effective links with others is an essential requirement for effective leadership. Power is a strong tool with which managers can motivate and manage their teams. An individual’s power is relative to the relationships they have with other individuals in the group.
In general, teams respond best to personal sources of power where the team perceives that the manager has expertise in the role of manager, provides challenging work, and is friendly and approachable to the team. When the challenge of work by the team integrates with their own individual goals then this brings intrinsic motivation for the team and the manager’s expert and reverent power is well received.
Teams who see the manager as holding organisational power may be less enthusiastic to complete work tasks and less motivated by the manager holding this power. Although these may be legitimate positions of power, they may be perceived as negative.
Conclusion
All managers need to take a leadership approach which best suits the team and their organisation’s goals, and within that role take responsibility for decision making.
Good leaders source opinions from all stakeholders, but act as required and draw their leadership power from authority and expertise. We must of course remember that leadership is not about holding power, but using the power you have to support good leadership, and the organisation and people it serves.
All good leaders should use the expertise available to them in their teams, and use that to make good decisions, lead their teams well, and achieve organisational outcomes for the betterment of all within the organisation.
Bibliography
Creed, P. (2024), “The Importance of Knowledge Management in the Ever-Changing Language School Workplace”, International House Journal #52
Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2005), “Assessing leadership dimensions, styles and organizational context”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20(2), 105– 123
Dunne, E. J., Jr., M. J. Stahl, et al. (1978), “Influence Sources of Project and Functional Managers in Matrix Organizations”, The Academy of Management Journal 21(1): 135-140
French, J & Raven, B H (1959), “The bases of social power” in Cartwright, D. (ed.), “Studies in Social Power”, Institute for Social Research
Goleman D., Boyatzis R., & McKee, A. (2002), “Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence”, Harvard Business School Press
Muller, R. & Turner, J. R. (2010), Project Oriented Leadership, Gower
Nguyen, S. (2022), How to Manager better by matching Leadership style to development level,” Workplace Psychology
Singh, A. (2009), “Organizational Power in Perspective”, Leadership and Management in Engineering, 9(4): 165-176
Taucean, I.M., Tamasila, M. & Negru-Strauti, G. (2016), “Study on Management Styles and Managerial Types for a Large Organization”, Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 221: 66-75
Author Biography
Patrick Creed’s background is in English Language Teaching and Training in which he has worked since 2004 (post certificate training). He has held roles as Teacher , Teacher Trainer, ADoS, DoS and now School Owner and Director having worked in Italy, Greece, Australia, Kenya (volunteer position) and Ireland. He co-wrote the Clockwise Intermediate Teacher Resource Book published by OUP and completed his Delta qualification in 2016. He holds a Masters in Ergonomics and Physics, Masters in Renewable Energies and a Masters in Project and Programme Management.
He currently runs an English language teaching institute in Galway Ireland, IH Galway Language Centre.
