As I read about transformational leadership in our book and lesson, I tried to connect the concepts with books and movies that I have read and watched. A movie that stood out for me was Freedom Writers. This movie was about a teacher that inspired her students to study, to be more empathetic and tolerant and to pursue their dreams.
Transformational leadership is about the leader interacting with followers in order to bring out their best self. It is about drawing upon their morals and motivations in order to get them to achieve more than they usually would (2017). I think that teachers that really care about their students and their progress are transformational leaders. It might be the best part about being a teacher, and why people choose to teach young people. I say this as a former teacher myself. On the other hand, there are also good teachers who are not, or do not have the opportunity to be, transformational leaders. I could say that they could be transactional leaders. Most teachers teach the class and that is all. They do their job and the students follow instructions and complete the class. After the class finishes, the students and teachers likely won’t communicate anymore (2017).
Gruwell (the protagonist) had certain characteristics that enabled her to be a successful transformational leader. She is quite charismatic and is passionate about helping young people (2017). She realizes this and this gives her additional motivation. As the movie progresses, it is clear that Gruwell is making sacrifices in order to carry out her transformational leadership and help her students. Her husband divorces her and she encounters resistance when she asks to teach the same group of students for the next year. I think that the administrator that blocks Gruwell is a transactional leader. She seems to feel threatened by Gruwell’s success at her transformational leadership and does not want to be outshone.
I liked that the movie shows the steps that Gruwell follows in order to make a significant change in the student’s lives. She starts by image building (2017). Gruwell realizes that in order to gain the student’s respect, she needs to portray herself differently than she normally would. Showing toughness and confidence was necessary in order for the students to look beyond appearances and respect her. Just by looking at her appearance and style of dress, the students had assumed that she was privileged and probably would not make an effort to understand them. However, by changing her body language and tone of voice, Gruwell commanded respect. Gruwell also built trust with the students (2017). I think that this was crucial. The students came from difficult backgrounds and had issues trusting authority figures. In school, many teachers were judgmental of them and did not try to get down to their level in order to help them. Gruwell set herself apart by immediately having the students engage in a trust-building exercise. She had the students interact with each other and make a connection. Gruwell was trying to make them look beyond appearances and race divisions and have them unite as a group. She also had some Holocaust survivors come in and talk with them, in order for the students to gain some perspective on their lives. Finally, Gruwell built personalized relationships with students who needed help (2017). Eva was a student who displayed a difficult attitude in class and had issues since she belonged to a gang. By having Eva communicate with her (as well as the rest of the class) through a journal, Gruwell was able to understand her and Eva felt empowered to make the right choice at the end.
I think that in this particular setting, transformational leadership was very effective. At the same time, I think that Gruwell would probably be unable to carry out this type of leadership in the long term. It may be emotionally and personally toiling to help these types of students for many years. If she chose to continue to help different groups of students, it is possibly that she may fall back on charismatic leadership or another type of leadership.
Sources
Pennsylvania State University. Lesson 10: Transformational Leadership. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1848444/modules/items/22449220
dxt5155 says
I really appreciate your take on the teacher leadership roles and the difference between those that are transformational and those that are transactional. I’m also looking forward to watching the movie Freedom Writers as I had not heard of it prior to your post.
You brought a lot of thoughts to my mind on leadership and teachers and it created a pondering through memories. In addition to your insight on transformational and transactional leadership in the classroom I also thought about the situational aspect. As I recall memories from school it seems that regardless of the class there was always some student that was either acting out, not paying attention, or incessantly interrupting.
Thinking through the classes I loved and the teachers I had the most respect for I realize many of them were situational leaders. We were not all treated exactly the same but were handled based on the situation that was laying in front of the teacher. Those that were acting out were handled differently than those that were following instructions. Those that were not paying attention would have their attention redirected, and if you were interrupting that situation was dealt with separately. Overall the situations that arose were each handled and in whatever manner was deemed necessary to the individual case.
As I looked back through the teachers I realized there are so many different leadership styles that were utilized and each class could potentially have a different style. As a student or follower I seem to have been comfortable with many of these styles but transformational and situational are what comes to mind most often from my experiences in school. Thanks for bringing those memories to the forefront of my mind!
tmp5400 says
MN5034,
Interesting view on teachers and transformational leadership. Such a good example because of how impressionable our youth can be. Why do you think more teachers are not transformational leaders? I think back to my teachers and I realize the same thing; most teachers are transactional leaders. However, I wasn’t the most forthcoming and approachable to my teachers. Most leadership models and theories, including transformational leadership, need follower commitment or involvement. In my opinion, I do not think I was as involved as I should have been. The only time I got overtly involved with a teacher was when I was borderline from a C to a B. I would use my interpersonal skills to try and skew my grade. It worked most times but I also learned something and transformed during one particular time.
Her name was Ms. Benítez; she was my Spanish 3 teacher in high school. I was struggling to say the least to maintain a C average. This is coming from a typical 3.5 GPA student. To expand on your point, she used individualized consideration to appease to my needs. She knew I wanted a ‘C’ and she provided a supportive climate to hear my wants (Northouse, 2016). She cared for me in a unique way. She spent extra tutor time with me after hours, which was not mandated by her contract with the school. My main problem was putting full sentences together. She developed a special model of learning by compartmenting the sentences in two parts, to ease the transition based on my learning curve. In my opinion, she produced a better effect using this transformational leadership model vice a transactional. If she wasn’t as personal with her approach, our eventual shared goal of getting a C. She could of easily gave me more homework and I could have completed the same goal via a transactional leadership model (e.g. you do extra credit work and I will give you a ‘C’). However, I believe this was more effective because better work was the final outcome. I tried a transactional approach in Spanish 2 and it was not as effective.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.