Page 13 - Handbook_EN

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2.1.2. What is leadership?
In business dictionary [10], there are two definition for leadership:

1. The individuals who are the leaders in an organization, regarded collectively.
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2. The activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this.

Leadership involves establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with others so that
they will follow willingly, providing the information, knowledge and methods to realize that
vision, and coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members and stakeholders.

Another definition of the leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act
towards achieving a common goal. People who lead have three common attributes:

✓ inspire others to share their vision;
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✓ motivate others to act on that vision;
✓ encourage others and help them overcome obstacles in pursuit of that vision.

Leadership requires traits that extend beyond management duties. But leadership also
involves communicating, inspiring and supervising. It`s important to say leadership doesn`t

mean seniority of one`s position in the top of hierarchy of the organization. Or in another words,
not all the top teams are developing leadership. As Warren Bennis say: “Leadership is the
capacity to translate vision into reality”.
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Leadership provides direction for an organization and its employees which need to know
the direction in which the organization is headed and who to follow to reach the destination.

Leadership involves showing employees how to effectively perform their responsibilities
and regularly supervising the completion of their tasks. Leadership is also about setting a
positive example for staff to follow, by being excited about the work, being motivated to learn
new things, and helping out as needed in both individual and team activities.

According with Peter Drucker: "The only definition of a leader is someone who has
dependence on teachers and their legal authority (Johnson, 1996). In finding this balance they teachers-leaders.eu
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followers. To gain followers requires influence but does not exclude the lack of integrity in
achieving this”. Some theorists believe that leadership is no different from the social influence
processes occurring among all members of a group and others believe that leadership is
everything someone is doing in order to lead effective.

As a leader of an educational school, it must be finding a balance between the leader

must, over time, develop competence and co-operation for collectively leading a school and
jointly ushering in change (Huffman, 2011). This implies that leaders must clearly understand
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