School Leader's Competencies in Management Area

Abstract

Quality of school leaders and managers is one of the basic factors influencing significantly quality of teaching and learning processes at each level of the system of education. To optimise professional training of school leaders the authors carried out a broad research which aim was to identify both significance of particular items of a school leader competence profile and school leaders’ needs and requirements derived from their current everyday practice. In the paper the authors present main results of one part of their research related to school leader competencies in management area, which they divided in four spheres: strategy creation, teaching process administration, ensuring and managing development of the school as an institution, managing human resource development. Each of these spheres comprises a lot of different items - competencies a successful school leader should dispose. Significance of some of them, specified as the most important, was assessed by means of a four-point scale by a research sample consisted of 93 school leaders - headmasters and deputy headmasters of primary and secondary schools. The data obtained for each item in all four spheres of the management area of a school leader competencies were processed by means of descriptive statistics. The results showed that the practicing school leaders consider as the most significant competencies of a school leader profile in the four mentioned spheres of the management area competency to create motivational strategies based on shared values of the school, competency to create and develop learning environment effective for pupils and students’ learning, competency to define clearly, distribute and delegate responsibilities and power scopes and tasks, and competency to lead and control colleagues, respectively. From the research results one can derive topics which the attention should be focussed on to offer school leaders and school managers an adequate professional education and training to improve and develop the appropriate key competencies a good school leader should be characterized by.