INTRODUCTION
A major aspect of contemporary school leadership concerns the management of change and school improvement. Change is something that certain happen anywhere, anytime and anything. School is as a place for agent of change through teacher activity to prepare or to help the student can succeed in their life. Outcomes from the school can live with their community and give contribution for their community reform become better live for all. To grasp those outcomes, school have to operate their program effectively particularly effective in teaching and learning process then impact to quality of school graduate. To realize that expectation a school should be have a good management and surely the best management will be have a good leader to manage the school and become successful school. To be effective, the most important thing is how the leader can manage the school program and school process, etc. The principal is a central factor for improving school.
While change must be well managed — it must be planned, organised, directed and controlled — it also requires effective leadership to introduce change successfully: it is leadership that makes the difference.The question is what kind of leader or what the qualities has which can be lead and manage the school change and improving the quality of school.
In this article I would try to explain what are qualities expected of school principals for improving the quality of school as summary was taken from some journals and some book or research study about successful change and improvement.
School Change and Improvement
Talking about the change in the organization included school, surely the leader is the important person to lead the change. Several leadership styles in management scope. Especially in education, there is appropriate leadership model for school quality improvement. In this writing I will describe two leadership model based on the theorist and result of study. But before explain the model; I will discuss how the leader can managing the change well and phases for improving the school based on some literature what I have read.
As the principal besides have to know and do my role and responsibility, they have to understand what is principal`s role particularly in change processes. As Fullan and Hargreaves (1991) supplement the list of teacher guidelines with a similar list for principals.
Understand your school culture. Involves sensitive investigation of the values, traditions, assumptions and beliefs of the school before trying to change it
Value your teachers: promote their professional growth. Involves observation and communication to find value in all staff to enhance their self esteem and professional growth
Extend what you value. Involves promoting the expertise of staff so that they can demonstrate their worth
Express what you value. Involves demonstrating what you value through communication and example
Promote collaboration, not cooptation. Involves developing the school culture and vision by fostering collaboration
Make menus of mandates. Involves committing to the principle of collaboration, yet empowering teachers to select from a range of practices
Use bureaucratic measures to facilitate, not to constrain. Involves using bureaucratic means to achieve desirable structures
Connect with the wider environment. Involves principals broadening contacts outside the school, and assisting the school to deal with un reasonable
Educational change has only recently begun to involve changing schools as organizations (Barth, 1990; Joyce, 1990; Schlechty, 1990). The focus of attention has shifted from individual to system change, from student achievement measures to broader school outcomes, from teachers as agents of change to principals as orchestrators of change. Improvement of an organization involves restructuring, and restructuring involves the acceptance of new ideas and new ways of acting (Heckman, 1990). Greater demands are being placed on schools as organizations and units of change, than were placed on schools as a collection of classrooms. In Fullan's words, "more powerful strategies are needed for more powerful changes" (1990, p. 21). With the shift from classroom to school as the focus of educational change, a corresponding shift in perception of the role of the principal from manager to leader has occurred.
The model proposes that the leadership of successful change requires vision, strategy, the development of a culture of sustainable shared values that support the vision and and strategy for change, and empowering, motivating and inspiring those who are involved or affected. This behaviour reflects the underlying dimensions and requirements of leadership: the cognitive, the spiritual, the emotional and the behavioral.
Change efforts that are purely ‘managerial’ in nature, especially those that are mismanaged, result in a lack of dedicated effort, conflict between functional areas and resistance to change. Resistance to change is a common phenomenon. Kubr (1996) provides a good account of why people resist change. A cognitive and behavioral reason is lack of know-how. A lack of conviction that change is needed — questioning the meaning and value of the change for individuals — inevitably leads to a lack ofmotivation to change.
Kotter (1990a, 1990b) says that management produces orderly results which keep something working efficiently, whereas leadership creates useful change; neither is necessarily better or a replacement for the other. Both are needed if organizations and nations are to prosper.
Dubrin (2001) says that ‘The leader . . . [helps] group members understand the need for change both emotionally and intellectually.’ How to meet the challenge of change can be understood more broadly using a new model of transformational leadership. This model attempts to integrate the multiple dimensions and requirements of leadership — the cognitive, spiritual, emotional and behavioral.
Hopkin stated that the practices of ‘third age’ school improvement are included:
