Leadership and management are two skills teachers need as they work with students. We are now going to try and understand the similarities and differences between leading and managing, along with trying to understand the role of followers are.

Leadership Defined

Leadership is defined in a variety of ways. One way of looking at leadership is to see it as an interpersonal influence. In other words, great leaderships have great relationships with people. This focus on relationships means that it is common for leaders to focus on maintaining group needs in their position of leadership. This means supporting others with the skills they need, materials, and or supporting group norms of behavior. Often, a person will lose a leadership position when they are no longer able to meet group needs.

Leadership also involves making sure things get done and a vision for the followers to follow. In other words, a leader knows where they want to go and can find ways to inspire others to follow.

This naturally applies to a teacher as well. A classroom teacher, like a teacher, must be able to connect with students and support students to have academic success. This can involve providing a stable learning environment, expertise, ad social support for students. If any of these things are considered missing by the students, the students may reject the teacher’s leadership. A teacher also must make stuff happen in the classroom while inspiring students to enjoy the journey of learning.

Leader, Manager or both

managers and leaders have overlapping yet different functions and origins. Leaders often emerge while managers are appointed. Leaders are focused on influence, while managers are focused on control. This is because a manager’s power comes from the organization, while a leader’s power comes from their expertise, charisma, etc.

Perhaps it is clear that managers and leaders have a lot in common. Successful managers often have leadership ability, while successful leaders show some management ability. A teacher is appointed as a manager by the school but needs to be seen as a leader by the students. This requires the ability to both managed and lead.

Followers

Followers are generally the people who are not seen as having a leadership or management position. A follower’s primary role is to accept or reject leadership. Accepting is good news, but rejection may lead to the followers picking their own leader.

When dealing with followers, a leader must look at the group’s general characteristics because different types of people need different types of leadership. Some followers need authoritarian leadership, which is strong direct leadership. This type of individual needs a leader who tells them what to do, and there is little need for a large amount of choice. Followers who need authoritarian leadership also tend to have less self-confidence and require more motivation to have success.

The other extreme in terms of followers are followers who want autonomous leadership, which means they want to participate in decision-making. These followers are often more confident and require support from leadership. Rigidness in leading does not usually work with this group of people.

In the classroom, a teacher needs to determine what style of leadership their students need. In addition, the style may not always be the same with the same students. In some situations, the students may need authoritarian leadership while requiring autonomy in another situation. Furthermore, as the students mature over the school year, this may mean an adjustment in the leadership style.

It is also vital to avoid condemning any particular leadership style as inferior because the situation determines how to lead. Authoritarian styles are viewed negatively at times. However, what’s terrible is always using the same style no matter the situation. A leader needs to provide his followers with what they need, whether authoritarian or autonomous.

Conclusion

A teacher must possess skills in leadership and management to support and help students. However, these skills must also be flexible because different students have different needs at various times from their teacher. As such, few would say that excellent teaching is something that is easy to do.