Managing and leading are two actions that can often be used
to describe the same thing. As a result, it is often difficult to draw
boundaries between the two. When I started my Masters in Educational Leadership
I did not know the difference between the terms. Even now, I have to think
about what actions pertain to each label. My reading and discussions with colleagues
have led me to the following summaries:
Leaders: the ones with the ideas to drive change
Vision, mission statement, ethos, etc. Leaders are the ones
that create the underlying ‘feeling’ of the educational institution. Leaders
are the ones with the imagination in where they want to take the institution.
Managers: the ones who have to make sure that change
happens
Managers are those who are employed to ensure that this
vision, mission statement and ethos is achieved. Those who design and implement
whole school policies; delegating work to other line managers such as heads of
years and heads of departments.
Reflecting back upon my teaching career I have a sense that
leaders are favoured over managers. I trained to teach through the Teach First
Leadership Development Programme. What is interesting to reflect upon is why Teach
First use “leadership” and not “management”. If one is training to teach, and
therefore a potential head of department/head of year/senior leader, isn’t
management something this teacher should be proficient in? Similarly, lecturers
on my masters have stated that many masters courses which were called
Educational Management have swapped the management out for leadership. Why was
this change made? Although we do not know the true reason for this, it can be
inferred that this change was a result of marketing: teachers want to be “Leaders”
rather than “Managers”, but why? Is it the connotations that leadership has? I
will continue to reflect upon this distinction, hopefully I can come back to
the questions I have posed in this post. If you have any ideas, let me know!
