1.3 The principalship: manager to leader  (Page 2/3)

Empowerment

"Empowerment is exactly what happens in a collaborative group, in terms of how everybody's opinion is valued and everybody is allowed to express themselves and be heard"(McMahon, 2001, p. 5). As a servant leader a principal constantly incorporates ways to empower their teachers. Some of these ways include freeing people to "do their thing," delegating with full responsibility, offering and receivingfeedback, and the encouragement of self-evaluation (McMahon, 2001). The more a principal uses these strategies the more individualsbecome empowered and develop leadership qualities. This development becomes vital to improving the school. With additional leaders tomake right decisions in the interest of the school, the core values will become the school norm.

For example, imagine the simple task of coming to school. Each teacher leaves from a different house and drives down different roads. In time they arrive at school. Think of this in terms of reaching the shared goals of the school. Each teacher may be at different starting points (homes) and may take different paths (roads) to reach the goals, but each one has a vision of where to head (school) and arrives there. Imagine the power of having all of these people working to achieve the same goal, working to change the school, and working to make the core values a normal part of the school's culture. This is why the empowerment of a staff becomes so valuable to a principal. A principal should allow his staff to make their own decisions for reaching the schools goals, as long as they stay within the standards of the school's core values.

Dependency

Unfortunately in a principal's attempt to empower his staff, he will have teachers who think negatively. Some teachers do not wantto be involved, accept responsibility, or practice self-management.These teachers have become dependent on the administrative staff to tell them what to do and how to do it. How did they get this way?They learned it from a bureaucratic managing principal. "When a principal-rather than the school community members- consistently solves problems, makes decisions, and gives answers, dependency behaviors on the part of staff actually increases" (Lambert, 2003, p. 48). Remember the simple event of coming to school, how getting everyone working towards a common goal is so powerful. A controlling principalunfortunately obtains just the opposite, never achieving such power. Suppose the day before school started the principal visitseach staff member's house and give them specific directions on how to get to school. He even tells them what time to leave, how fast to drive and what car to drive. Can you imagine how insignificant the staff feels after this is done? Right away the principal is showing his staff that he has no confidence in their ability to make decisions. As a principal continue to control every aspect of the staff's job they become dependent on the principal to tell them what to do and when to do it. All self-initiative is taken away.