According to the Association of Washington School Principals (2000), the leadership position of the school principal is of crucial importance. Wide in scope, the role is said to assume professional, ethical, moral, legal, and supervisory responsibilities and accountability with the primary task being to create a school culture or environment in which children can achieve their full potential.
But precisely what does the principal's role as school leader entail and what attributes and characteristics allow principals to function as effective school leaders? The purpose of this paper is provide a description and discussion of the role of the principal as school leader. The paper ends with a brief summary of the covered material.
In her discussion of the role of school leadership, Clark (2000) notes that it first comprises various tasks. These include overseeing and administrating: the general operations of the school, the assignment of students to classes, the evaluation of teachers, the enforcement of the roles of other staff members, helping to solve and resolve academic and social problems, the maintenance of buildings, providing curriculum leadership, and developing, administering and operating the budget.
According to Clark (2000), it is the quality of leadership in all of these areas that sets the tone for the school's general climate. In other words, the manner in which these actions are taken will be interpreted by others in terms of what is to be considered important and the school's climate and culture will reflect the values expressed via the quality of the principal's leadership.
Given the foregoing the key question to ask is: What leadership characteristics and values make for effective functioning as school leader in terms of fulfilling the tasks assigned to the role? There has been a great deal of research on effective qualities and characteristics of principal's in their role as school leaders. For examp...