Do you know? That every school leader spends almost half of their day (20-40%) of their day solving and managing conflict? Most of the school leaders adopt a conflicting leadership style to mitigate the friction between teachers and manage administrators, parents, and other school staff.
However, this kind of leadership style doesn't prove to be productive most of the time which leads to an increase in frustration, and stress level and even make the school's progress stagnant.
In this blog post, we will help you in the process of identifying your conflict leadership style in schools we also get to know the top three leadership styles with which you can lead your school successfully.
Choosing the Best Conflict Leadership Style for School Administrators
Conflict is one of the aspects that every individual face in their life in different situations. Human brains take any conflicting situation as a threat to their host and it doesn’t be able to differentiate between harmless threats like- someone challenging your decisions, or big threats like- you’re being chased by someone.
Our brain in conflicting situations always gives two choices either fight or flight, which is not the appropriate action to take in situations like while you are leading your school and you are handling any conflict.
There are three conflict leadership styles in which school leaders choose either one of them while facing any conflicting situations. If you’re wondering which type of leadership style you acquire during any conflicts, don’t worry we will help you in identifying your conflict leadership style in schools.
1. Avoidant Leaders
Those school leaders who choose to be avoidant leaders generally tend to avoid conflict in every situation. They generally try to achieve their school goals and objectives without engaging with others and drawing too much attention or the opinions of others.
For example- In a team meeting teacher questioned about that they had joined this meeting in expectancy to choose a new curriculum related to Science subject, but instead, we were just having a discussion over and over again over the same topic in every meeting.
2. Aggressive Leaders
The second conflict leadership style is called aggressive Leaders. This kind of leader creates a culture of fear and intimidation for every school member and student which ultimately stifles the level of creativity and risk-taking. They also have a hard time accepting their fault which ultimately stagnant the growth of school.
For example-
- School leaders call out teachers in between class for their average teaching performance.
- School leaders withhold bonus stipends for teachers' good performance.
3. Conflict Addressing Leader
The third and last conflict leadership style is those leaders who address the conflict. Resolving conflict is the goal of the constructive conflict management approach. Contrary to popular belief, which holds that conflict only occurs in dysfunctional organizations, we think that conflict can be constructively managed and is a necessary component of the school reform process.
After all, issues cannot be resolved until they are brought up initially. "Conflict agile" leaders use disagreement as a window to better understand people's doubts and the strength of their emotions rather than ignoring or dismissing opposition.
For Example- Some school senior members do not agree with the integration of technology in the teaching and learning process of school. However, you intervene and make them understand the benefit of integrating technology into the learning and teaching process.
Transforming School Conflict Through Innovative Leadership Styles
Every school leader has their own conflict leadership style and their own unique ways of dealing with various conflicting situations. With the above-mentioned conflict leadership style, especially the conflict-addressing leadership style can develop and enhance the administrative skills of teachers in the right direction.
If you are also interested in becoming one of the most effective and best school leaders then pursue courses like the Certificate in Educational Administration and Management course, which will not just help you in identifying your conflict leadership style in schools but also make you capable of dealing with any uncertain situation, which might crop up in your school.
We believe education should be accessible for everyone. That’s why we don’t charge for our blogs. Find the right course that will help you in your career with us, contact us at +91-6292150868. You can mail us at act@asiancollegeofteachers.com
