Research on Instructional Leadership Competencies of School Principals.
Problem Situation Today management science has been experiencing a process where concepts with regards to how organizations will be managed are often discussed and new approaches are suggested with research support. It is seen that the concept of leadership becomes prominent more than the traditional concept of management and administration. Iman (2000) defines the concept of leadership as the power to influence others and lead them to action in line with certain goals and targets. Calik (2003) defines leadership as being a source of inspiration to others and guiding them while being the stimulating power of the change in the organization as well as solving the problems. Leadership is the foremost of the important issues that both theorists and implementers strive to resolve and about which extensive scientific research in the field of management have been made in 20th century (Ercetin, 2000) A leader is generally a person who can motivate, influence, give good examples and guide. Leader is the individual who has a creative and initiator role in ensuring organization to survive in line with its goals. The leader is the one making critical decisions not daily ones. Leadership involves foreseeing future, determining a realistic vision and targets for the future of the organization and collaborating people in order to realize this (Iman and Turan, 2001: 43) Senge (1990) defines leaders as the designers of the organizational behaviors. At schools, activities are conducted towards changing student behaviors in a planned and programmed manner. It is undoubtedly true that the most important factor in conducting the educational and instructional activities and consulting at school is the school administrator. The role expected from the school principle who performs the function of administering with the legal force is now not the educational administration but educational leadership (Yoruk and Akda 2010:67) With the developing and changing education system, the roles expected from school administrators have become more complicated. The school administrator needs to be aware that he should change at first in order to maintain the transformation at school and demonstrate this change to his surroundings. Besides the managerial aspect of the school administrators, it is expected that they are the instructional leaders. It is necessary that administrators demonstrate effective leadership at education institutions where human resource is effectively educated. School administrators should possess the characteristics of a leader more than a manager in order to reach the organizational goals. School principals in the recent educational entities implement some major strategies while practicing the leadership approaches. These are traditional leadership, instructional leadership, transformative leadership and facilitator leadership. The concept of effective leadership may bring the change of school principals who do not have any effect of the school anymore and whose success levels are gradually decreasing on the agenda. Decisions that may adversely affect the school may result in a decrease in education staff's trust to school. However; an effective leadership may be an effective component of the system (Porter et.al. 2010) Managers with leadership behaviors may establish visions; gather all the employees around a common goal, open new ways for education by creating a positive culture at school (ct. nandl, Ozkan 2006, Law and Glower, 2000) The interest in leadership also gains importance in cultural terms as weld as an educational policy in macro level. School leadership should be dealt with in interaction with administration (Heck and Hallinger, 2005) Scientific studies regarding instructional leadership have been performed since 1980s. The concept of effective schools comes into front through these studies. In a study by Edmons (1979) instructional leadership is defined as the school principal's role (Hallinger, 2005)