Abstract

I worked in a small primary school for many years. I feel I have less experience in leadership. It is never, ever a goal of mine to meet the expectations of my subordinates and students. I am not satisfied with my teachers and school’s performance. This realization inspired me to do action research to improve my leadership style and promote shared leadership.

For collecting baseline data, I used three tools: interviews, survey questionnaires, and observation. My critical friend assisted me in maintaining field notes and interviewing other colleagues. The analysis of baseline data collected from five teachers proved three main areas of my concern for effective leadership; collaborative decision making, effective job delegation and proper communication. 

The concept of shared leadership, of course, flies in the face of the traditional idea of how a school should operate: one person in charge and the others follow. But in a team of specialists, for example, one expert usually does not have the know-how to understand all the facets of the job at hand. Instead, a better approach is to share the duties, so the person in charge at any moment is the one with the key knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) for the aspect of the job at hand.

When the KSA requirements change, a new expert should step in. In this article, we share some preliminary insights from our in-progress, multi-tasked study of shared leadership—labeled "Share the Lead"—to help put an exclamation point on the kind of ideas included throughout this special issue. In summary, the early evidence on shared leadership demonstrates that it can have a powerful performance impact on, and through, teams. Nonetheless, shared leadership, we must emphasize, is not a replacement for leadership from above. It should only be considered for situations where the tasks of the people involved share a certain degree of interdependence.

Post intervention data was collected using the same tools. There has been some improvement in all the three areas of my concern identified from the baseline data analysis. More parents and teachers took part in the decision-making process. They were more open and shared their concerns about students’ development. Teachers became more responsible and punctual in their duties. Students’ participation also increased in decision making processes.

When a leader fails to unite and build a team, it’s impossible to accomplish goals. In a situation where there is no collaborative effort, a leader becomes impoverished and fails to succeed at the end. The whole atmosphere gets disrupted and ultimately affects the learning outcome of the students. The relationship amongst staff becomes fragile. Students’ faith in teachers diminishes, which leads to disruptive behaviors. Eventually, there is no room to create a conducive learning environment. 

I have observed that there is always an issue of leadership and management. There are clashes of ideas and authority between the leaders and their subordinates, especially in Bhutanese society. Leaders usually feel that they are powerful and have the authority to lead alone. Such a leadership style refers to an old model of formal, one-person leadership where it leaves the substantial talents of subordinates largely untapped.

Findings from this AR suggest that team leadership is enhanced through collaborative decision making, effective delegation and effective communication skills. This AR also concludes that team leadership is very much necessary for effective leadership and management. 

Specifically, team/shared leadership benefits schools in three important ways: teachers working together are better able to create shared expectations and high standards for all students; teachers working together engage in discourse that leads to the creation of learning experiences that are richer and of higher quality than those created by teachers working in isolation; and teachers working in teams are more effective in creating the collaborative culture that allows a school to continuously reflect on and improve its practices.

Since I am not an experienced leader (Principal), this AR has contributed an enriching experience for my professional growth. In the process of promoting team leadership, I was exposed to other aspects of effective leadership. Beyond my professional development, this AR also helped me to improve my personal behavior. I have learnt many tips to control my anger and now I am confident to pacify my bad temper while dealing with my team. The intervention strategies implemented in this AR could be followed by other leaders to examine their leadership style and promote team leadership. This AR concludes that collaborative decision making, effective delegation and effective communication are necessary for building team leadership.

Although this AR has been challenging, yet it was inspiring and productive. There has been overall improvement in my leadership style after incorporating my intervention strategies.

Keywords: Reconnaissance; Teachers; Principal

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Citation

Citation: Rinzin Dorji and Karma Tshering. “Shared Leadership Practice in Samtenling Primary School”. Acta Scientific Paediatrics 4.10 (2021): .

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Kinzang Wangchuk., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.