The Role of Leadership in Institution Building
Administrator does not exist for its own sake or just for the sake of
existing. It is and must be committed to some roles/responsibilities if it has to
accomplish the very reason of its being. In order to perform his role and
accomplishment his task, the administrator should know what has to be done and
how it is to be done. He also needs to know that it is a joint effort of people doing
nay task.
In particular, administrators have role involvement with regards to their
responsibility as administrator of a certain institution. Primarily administrators is
responsible in planning, organizing, controlling coordinating, supervising,
evaluating, providing leadership, recording and reporting and also promoting
close relationship between the school and the community.
a. Administrator as Leader
Administrator has a key role in leadership as well as initiating
change in the institution and the community. Being administrator, you
have an important role in leading the institution resources into
improvement and success. Leadership is very important in any
institution. For a leader to effective and efficient he must need to
posses skills such as conceptual, technical and human skills as well
as exercising democratic leadership in performing his role in an
institution.
A conceptual skill deals with individual’s ability to apply information and
aspects into practice that’s why administration must be knowledgeable.
On the other hand, technical skills means individual ability to apply variety
of techniques to achieve goals such as skills in planning, decision making,
communication and management of the institution; and human skills
which deals with individual’s ability to work effectively as a group member.
Remember that a good leader is also a good follower.
b. Administrator as and Agent of Change
Administrator has a role in initiating change or an agent of change
in the institution and community. Administrator serves as mediator,
bridging the gap between the institution and the community or the
environment. Promoting close relationship between the school and the
community is an important function of the administrator. School program
is the biggest factor in building good school-community relations. He
needs to make a program, which aims to benefit his immediate clientele,
who are the people in the community and the community itself.
Remember that institution exist inside the environment (system) which
means that the environment greatly influence the plans, goals and
programs of any institution inspite of the existing boundaries. Any
institution that has no exchange channel with the environment is closed.
This needs a two way process wherein environment contributes students,
materials, energy, information and cultural values; and institution returns
educated persons, information’s, and entertainment’s.
c. Administrator as Planner
Administrator acts as planner in the institution simply
because one of their fundamental functions or responsibilities is a
careful planning. He is responsible in formulating as well as
selecting the best courses of action in order to achieve the
educational goals.
Good and careful planning directs them in deciding the first
course of action or rather provides you the bird’s eye view of the
whole plan. It is in the thorough and careful planning that the
administrator could anticipate the future and so the problems that
the institution might encounter and maybe able to think of the
advance solutions.
d. Administrator as Organizer
Being an administrator you need to have skills in
organizing those complex task of bringing together the necessary
human resources along the required physical plant and
equipment/materials into an operating unit. He has a role in
leading and building cooperative efforts within the human
elements affecting the institution, such as the faculty,
administrator, and the community as well as setting the tone for
openness and trust for both the formal and informal personal
relationship that whenever institution is confronted with problems
they can easily interact to facilitate solutions of the problems.
e. Administrator as Director
Administrator is responsible in carrying out all educational
programs and deciding who shall carry out the plans; determines
the subjects to be included in each course; provides for physical
equipment necessary to carry out the work and also issuing orders,
hold conferences and supervise activities.
There are lots of things to consider in this task such as
assessing the needs of his school, teachers, his pupils and those
people in the community and evolve an educational program that
very much suited to them.
f.
Administrator as Controller
Administrator supervises his people under him according
to their set goals. He need to see if there are problem and errors
so that he could intervene and help them to correct it.
g. Administrator as Coordinator
Proper coordination done by the administrator is needed to
overcome the limitations of planning and organizing as well as the
inherent limitations of personnel. This bridges the gap between
the people, resources and the product itself.
It is the responsibility of the administrator to coordinate all
the programs and activities of the school in the community and
make all these things in harmony, which will lead to the success of
any programs. He must develop an interacting and cooperative
working relationship in the whole system.
He has a role in maintaining and translating the curriculum
into concrete learning, experiences and improves the instruction
program. Often in the past and in the present, institutions were
criticized for the irrelevance of their curricula, the poor quality
graduates, and the mediocre level of instruction obtaining within
the classroom. This is because the administrator is lacking the
actual leadership performance.
h. Administrator as Supervisor
The administrator has a role/involvement in making the
educational program effective. He needs careful supervision
studies of those methods and techniques to improve the teaching
and learning process.
i.
Administrator as Evaluator
Evaluation is needed in order to ascertain if the institution
and the community have achieved the educational goals. It is
necessary because this evaluation reveals the weaknesses and
strengths of the whole program.
Administrator has a role of establishing and maintaining
effective “feedback” circuits which an adequate evaluation can
provide for purposes of identifying whether project plans are
pursued by the people as expected.
Moreover, administrator has also a role in looking into the
professional growth of his personnel staff, and that he is also concerned
in identification, orientation, assignment, improvement and evaluation of
staff.
An institution creates and operates in a situation where there is a high
expectancy of what institution does to improve the quality of living of those whom
it serves. Educational administrator handles the total institution building as part of
his administration tasks.
Problems that maybe Encountered in Institution Building
Some of the problems that maybe encountered in institution building can
be cited as…
1. Unfit goals and objectives of programs by institution for the target
clientele it serves;
2. Political factor may also be a problem in such a way that oftentimes
the politician’s ideas and attitude do not jibe with those of educational
planner or administrator.
3. Economic factor may also be a problem when the use and distribution
of resources become unbalance; Economic analysis is needed
because it provides supporting data for more intelligent decision for
institutional builders; and provides a broad framework within which the
desired educational objectives can be expressed and accomplished in
the most reasonable and efficient manner.
4. Problems, to deal with the untrained people performing task which are
not their field of specialization.
5. Administrator’s lack of leadership capability to lead the personnel.
Administrator must have a thorough knowledge his people and get
acquainted to be effective and efficient administrator of an institution
in terms of. . .
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Objectives of institution
Structures of an institutional building
Content of institution
Methods and technique
Financing the institution
Innovations and technology
Research and evaluation
6. Lack of careful planning among the people and administrators to
ensure the growth, development and success of institution building. It
needs harmonious working relationship between and among staff and
the administrator.
7. Insufficient funds for operation. Funds or adequate budget plays an
important role in institution building because whole system survival
depends upon its budget. It lacks of resources such as money, man
and technology will have a telling effect on the institution capabilities
to sustain its operation and initiate programs and project attuned to
the needs, problems and interest of the people it serves.
8. Lack of supervision by the administrator. The administrator has a
role/involvement in making the educational program effective.
9. Lack of technical competence, apply the techniques and methods in
each program.
10. Unfit programs to its clientele, which means that you must consider
primarily the clientele you, need to serve.
An institution needs constant re-examination to enable it to
become an effective agency of progress and enlightenment.
SUMMARY
It is a truism that in the academe, school administrators started their
career as ordinary classroom teachers and rise in the hierarchy of the
organization due to exposure, experiences and obtaining an advance degree in
which they gained knowledge, skill and abilities useful to make the institution and
the people they lead to a better and conducive place of study and source of
information and technologies. As he ascends to an administrative position, his
main concern is to build up that institution he heads. This he can verily do by
manifesting leadership capability, which can liken to a bow, which gives guidance
and direction to reach its target. Leadership binds the integral parts of an
institution into one functional and united whole; and the force that pushes an
institution focused towards its goal and objectives.
The discussion has vividly potrayed how relationship becomes an
important factors in institution building. Initially, it discussed the concept of
leadership in terms of types, styles, character traits and managerial dimension of
leadership
It was also established that leadership was a link-pin in decision-making,
organizing, planning, staffing, coordinating, communicating, controlling and
evaluating processes.
As leadership thrives in an organization, literature regarding the concept
and elements of organization, and management process with respect to the
interplay of these elements in an organization and the leadership role in the
organization management have been given due course.
Lastly, the unit ended up presenting some problems concerning the role
of leadership in institution building.