"My ECE Assignment" series is meant to demystify ECE and make it a more pleasurable endeavour for those of us who are willing to commit to it :Practicum Task : Evaluate Leadership Roles
(1) Record a personal statement (based on literature) about your understanding of leadership. What, to you, is leadership? What, if any, are the differences between leadership and management? What, based on your readings, are the characteristics of modern leaders?
My personal statement on leadership:
Leadership is an attribute of a person who shows the ability to lead others into change. People with leadership skills are therefore essentially change-agents. They are able to directly or indirectly influence others into accepting or following a new direction.
Anyone can thus be in a leadership position, not just people who are appointed and entrusted with specific organizational responsibilities.
The leading management guru, Tom Peters, best describes leadership (Winston Churchill Leadership Website, 2009) when he said,
“Leadership is a confidence game. Act the part”.
He also has this to say of leaders,
“Be a dealer in hope - keep an eye out for Grand Possibilities. Inspire others by throwing down a Great Challenge”.
Modern leaders therefore inspire confidence in people, and engender belief within oneself. One can see this vividly in our local context, where Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, continues to inspire confidence in his constituents and the general public. He is the embodiment of all the characteristics of what a modern leader should hold : charismatic, influential and a pillar of integrity.
Differences in leadership and management can best be contrasted in the following 5 ways by viewing what managers and leader do (Sciarra & Dorsey 2002):
i) Managers accept responsibility, while leaders seek responsibility.
ii) Managers minimize risks, while leaders take calculated risks.
iii) Managers delegate cautiously, while leaders delegate enthusiastically.
iv) Managers view workers as employees, while leaders view workers as potential followers.
v) Managers administer, while leaders innovate.
Looking at management and leadership from the viewpoints above, the differences between them are therefore quite evident.
(2) Throughout your practicum reflect on the 14 leadership roles and record examples of how you and your senior teacher demonstrate your leadership roles.
i) Role Model
Teacher M, as the centre supervisor, takes punctuality seriously. She always made sure that she is in the centre 10 minutes before her expected starting time. Such role-modelling on her part demonstrates to her staff that this service we provide to parents is very important and punctuality should not be taken for granted.
ii) Influencer
I made it point to converse with the children in my class, during this practicum, in grammatically proper English. This reinforces the importance of proper conversational English to the children, and being highly impressionable themselves, I know this will rub off on them, over time.
iii) Mentor
Teacher M had taken upon herself to be my mentor during this practicum. She ensured that a routine of having a 20-minute meeting before the day begins, and before the day ends, with me was in place. This gave me precious time alone with her to share my views with her, and more importantly, for her to share her experience as a supervisor with me.
iv) Coach
Teacher M provided excellent coaching to me when she showed how she utilized the various IT systems to administer her day-to-day role as a supervisor of a childcare centre. She took particular care in helping me understand the need to update the CCLS system regularly, as required by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports.
v) Manager
The centre director showed her managerial skill and demonstrated leadership when she spoke directly to the parent of one of the students in my class who was showing signs of succumbing to the HFMD disease. I was in her office when she confidently spoke to the mother of the child over the telephone that even though this incident was disruptive to her work schedule but that HFMD was a serious disease and that she should come down to fetch and give relief to her child, by seeking immediate medical advice. The mother came within 30 minutes. The following day, the child was confirmed as having HFMD. It showed the importance of managing the centre with speed and with patience.
vi) Collaborator
I acted in my role as a collaborator when I worked with Teacher M to prepare for a new nature corner involving a new rabbit, for the children. We had to bring the rabbit for proper medical treatment at a local clinic, before purchasing a pet cage for it. After preparing some common information about rabbits for other teachers to use, the children in the centre took turns over the next 2 days to view, hold and play with the rabbit, thus initiating a new experience of nature for the children.
vii) Networker
The centre took the step of engaging with the Town Council, at the suggestion of Teacher M, to utilize the neighbourhood spice and vegetable garden for the benefit of the children. Permission was granted for the children to visit the garden monthly, with the added bonus of having a Town Council member present to personally show the children the various highlights of the garden. Such networking was valuable to the centre.
viii) Challenger
I took the initiative to bring my observation to Teacher M that the front door of the centre seemed to be left unlocked for most of a typical day. I shared my view that this might pose a potential safety issue for the children, especially if due to various reasons, unwanted visitors enter the centre and abducted a child. My view on this matter was acknowledged as a good one by the management.
ix) Team builder / Team player / Team leader
As a team player, I participated with the whole team when we were required to clean and sanitized all the classrooms, learning materials and mattresses, when we learnt that HFMD had infected one of the students in our class. This was done during the nap time of the children, and we stayed over at the centre till 7.30pm that day to ensure that the job was properly executed.
x) Decision maker
When it came to light that the venue of a field trip had to be changed due to unforeseen circumstances, Teacher M exhibited her leadership skill as a decision-maker when she took the decision to divert the field trip to a new venue, even though there was less than 3 days left to the actual field trip day. She could have cancelled the field trip, as recommended by a few teachers, but she decided to continue with it but to another venue, in the interest of the children. I appreciated her leadership skill in this instance.
(3) Conclude with a paragraph as to what you see as being the challenges that exist in the provision of effective leadership in the Singaporean early childhood settings.
The main challenge that exist in the provision of effective leadership in early childhood settings here is tied to the perception held by many parents and the public at large about what childcare centres really mean to them.
Childcare centres still carry the connotation of child-minding to many. As such, early childhood education as a professional field on its own, suffers from a lack of understanding and more importantly, lack of respect by the general public.
As a consequence, leadership in the field of early childhood education here holds little traction and currency within the corridors of power, which in turn leads to this cycle of disinterest, apathy and lack of leadership, in that order.
The other challenge stems from the heavy workload of preschool teachers today, especially in childcare centres. All childcare centre educators are literally swamped with the day-to-day needs of running their classes well that they simply have no extra leeway, in terms of time and resources, to innovate, be creative and to initiate new teaching methodologies in class.
Leadership within their own classroom context thus takes second stage, while daily needs take centre stage.
References:
1. Sciarra, D.J. & Dorsey, A.G. (2002). Leaders and supervisors in childcare programs. Albany, N.Y. : Delmar Thomson Learning.
2. Winston Churchill Leadership Website [Online database]. Retrieved April 22, 2009 from World Wide Web : http://www.winston-churchill-leadership.com/peters-definition.html
