Leadership is a trait; each of us has unique leadership traits, for example in Characteristics of Good Teachers by Benjamin H. Layne and Deron R. Boyles mentions that a most important trait is recognition of individual differences of a teachers . Is ability, it means you are able, you have the capacity.
Is a skill, it means you know how to do something, that you are competent, as a competency, leadership becomes available to everyone.Is a behavior, it requires task and process behaviors, effective leaders combine these two behaviors, for example when low levels of maturity are enacted in relation to the tasks being performed, a high task-behavior of the leader should be exhibited. At medium levels of maturity, leaders need to be more focused on relationship-behaviors and at the highest levels of subordinate maturity, the leader needs to offer little direction or task-behavior and allow the subordinate to assume responsibilities.Is a relationship, centered on communication between leaders and followers, for example the relationship between teachers and students is important for the education.
Is an influence, a process whereby an individual influences a group to achieve a common goal, there is a good sentence to mention it which is example is better than precept.Teacher as a leadership in the school, they should leading students in a good way, teachers should have leadership skills, which means teachers use their knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals and objectives whit students and their skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. Besides, leadership also is a relationship, communication is very important between teachers and students and it is an interactive process. Leaders always affect followers, so that teachers will influence students to achieve a common goal.If one seeks to be perceived by others as a leader, he should possess or cultivate at least five traits.
The first one is intelligence, including verbal, perceptual, and reasoning capabilities, teachers must have good communicative skill to receive and send messages with student, for example there is a tittle call Teacher Verbal Ability on a job advertisement, it shows that teacher must have good communicative skill to receive and send messages with student. The second one is self-confidence, it is certainty about one’s competencies and skills.The third one is determination, it desires to get the job done (i. e. , initiative, persistence, drive), teachers need to teach students the most knowledge and solve many different problems afterschool every day, very big stress they need to bear.
The fourth one is integrity, which means the leader should be honesty and trustworthiness, teachers need to keep students secret including all private matters about the students.The last one is sociability, leader’s inclination to seek out pleasant social relationships, teachers need to get along with students every day, and sometimes they need to meet parents, and good social relationships can help them. Teachers are transformational leadership, it building the capacities of individuals, innovation and inspiring people. “A process where an individual engages with others creating a connection that raises motivation and morale in leader and follower (Burns, 1978)”.
As a teacher shouldn’t only teach students knowledge from books, they should give student a vision that things would be different or better through the cooperation of them. In transformational leadership, Bass identified four specific components, including charismatic leaders which are esteemed role models and followers align around a vision, like students are willing to follow the guidance from teachers to achieve a high score. Besides, inspirational leaders are provided meaning and optimism about mission and attainability, like teachers will encourage students before the examination, told them everything is possible if they are diligent.Furthermore, intellectually stimulating leaders means followers question basic assumptions and view problems from new perspectives, it likes teachers teach student critical thinking then students can get different point of view.
The last one is individually considerate leaders, when leaders work with followers, diagnosing needs and elevating to higher levels, teachers will concern the emotion and needs of students, help them solve the problems including psychology and physiology.
