LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERS :
AN
INTEGRATED MODEL
By
Suzana
Abd Latif
Sazali
Yusoff
Institut
Aminuddin Baki
Ministry
of Education Malaysia
The rapid expansion of globalization during the past decades has
inevitably led to the dissemination of new knowledge and information within the
educational sphere across countries and continents. As knowledge workers in today’s competitive global market,
educational leaders need to think through the organization’s mission, set its
aims, lead and manage the resources for the achievement the organization has to
contribute. They need to be able to deal with increasingly
challenging national and global issues which inevitably point to the monumental
obligation of acquiring crucial competencies to keep abreast of or even ahead
from the current competitive global environment. The constant, accelerating,
unpredictable change in today’s global competitive environment demands better
leadership to be employed in order to provide right courses of direction and
action through uncertain and challenging times. As we
believe that leadership process is dynamic, the ‘force’ underlying any
leadership process, indisputably, is the leader. It is our belief that
educational leaders are indeed the centripetal and centrifugal forces
responsible for the enhancement of their leadership repertoire. It is with this
awareness that we attempt to transform the conscious of many into perceiving
leadership process as involving dynamic entities who affect and are affected by
their environmental determinants. Thus, this paper attempts to offer a more
potent approach through the conceptualization of an integrated model of
leadership. We posit that in order for the educational leaders to develop their
leadership competency, they need to be aware of their position as defined and determined
within the multiple socio-organizational structures as well as their
role-relations with the others and their functions in the organization. In
addition, within this systemic framework we also attempt to highlight the
integration of leadership capacity and leadership capability as fundamentals of
leadership competency, of which every educational leader needs to be aware of
and work on.
Keywords : Leadership, development, competency,
capacity, capability
This paper was presented at 1st International Conference on Exploring Leadership and Learning Theories in Asia (ELLTA). Penang, Malaysia on 15 -17 February 2011