Abstract
The long-range impact of educational leadership is to empower others in the school community to nurture their talents and abilities and make them leaders in their own capacities. To realize this, the leader needs to adopt the transformational leadership framework, which requires them to be an intellectual stimulator, inspirational motivator, mentor, and coach. The process of leadership incorporates several leadership strategies including direction-setting, developing people, mentoring and coaching, and developing leadership programs. There is a need for continuous learning to enhancing the leader’s handling of people from diverse cultures, religion, and nationalities. The intermediate aim of the leader is to help followers realize their maximum potential.

Educational Leadership Philosophy

Strong educational leadership is a crucial determinant of effective student learning. On the basis of strong leadership, a struggling school can transform and a great one empowered to thrive even more. According to a report by the Wallace Foundation, educational leadership is the second most significant school-related factor, after classroom instruction, contributing to what students learn (Leithwood et al, 2004). The overall purpose of educational leadership is to promote effective student learning and motivate stakeholders to work together towards a common vision. The immediate outcome of strong educational leadership is a school community bound by a shared understanding of the organization’s goals, a common vision, motivated staff, and a positive organizational culture that empowers all people to thrive. In the Genesis creation story, God, upon creating man, gave him complete dominion over the rest of creation, making him a leader rather than a follower (Genesis 1: 26, The New International Version). Similarly, the long-range impact of educational leadership is to empower others in the school community to nurture their talents and abilities and make them leaders in their own capacities.

Philosophy of Educational Leadership

My philosophy of educational leadership is based on the transformational model of leadership. The purpose of the transformational leader is to satisfy the needs of followers to improve their performance and provide the resources and support that they would need to realize their highest potential (Martin et al., 2006). Martin et al. (2006) summarize/group the purpose of the transformational leader into four. First, the leader provides the foundation for idealized leadership, which involves providing a sense of mission and vision for the organization, winning the trust of followers, and instilling pride so that more people race to be part of the organization. They are a source of inspirational motivation to their followers, collaborating with them to develop reasonable expectations and working together to devise strategies for personal and professional development as a means to keeping them focused towards the shared vision. Thirdly, a transformational leader is the source of intellectual stimulation. They provide intelligence and careful problem-solving that ensures teamwork and sees to it that that all stakeholders work together collaboratively towards the shared vision. Finally, a transformational leader serves to make every member of the team feel valued. They offer individualized consideration to team members and treat them as individuals, empowering each one to achieve their best according to their abilities, talents, and capacity. While an instructional leader emphasizes the core business of teaching, meeting targets and realizing achievements; the transformational leader focuses on winning the commitment of...…than as passive recipients of information. The effective engagement of followers would help to make them feel valued and as an important part of the organization, thus compelling them to put more effort towards its success.

Diversity

Globalization has turned the world into a one large global village. Consequently, the American population today is composed of people from diverse cultures, nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. As such, leaders ought to be open to the idea of enhancing their diversity-awareness skills to ensure they maintain a comfortable environment for all. A promising strategy for educational leaders is to remain open to continuous learning as a way of enhancing their understanding of the beliefs and attitudes associated with different cultures, nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. Further educational leaders need to treat all people fairly and to prevent stereotyping of people who hold different beliefs from theirs. Transformational leaders serve as role models for their followers. As such, the leader’s attitude towards people who hold different beliefs systems is likely to influence their followers’ attitudes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the long-term impact of educational leadership is to empower one’s followers to nurture their talents and abilities so as to make them leaders in their own capacities. The essence of leadership is not to maintain followers, but to create leaders from one’s followers. To realize this, leaders need to adopt the transformational leadership framework, which requires the leader to be an inspirational motivator, intellectual stimulator, a mentor, as well as a coach whose primary goal is not to achieve academic targets, but to inspire and empower followers to work towards shared organizational goals and vision.…