Abstract
This study explores the leadership actions-oriented behavior of school principals in Finland. Actions-orientated behavior enables the leader to appropriately articulate relations and task orientation to meet the immediate contextual demands and to accommodate followership toward change and development. The leadership actions-orientated behavior of Finnish school principals were studied in three schools. In-depth interviews with school actors (principals, vice principals, teachers, special educators, and nonteaching staff) were conducted to triangulate the analyzed data. It was found that leadership actions-oriented behavior enabled school leaders to articulate appropriate behavioral patterns to generate motivation and commitment. The results suggest that actions orientations toward high-on relations enabled leaders to achieve leadership success, while actions orientations toward high-on task enabled leadership effectiveness. Actions-oriented behavior toward high-on task enables leadership flexibility with greater leadership elasticity. The results suggest that school actors anticipated a relational approach, whose actions orientations were high-on task. The results also suggest that relations-oriented behavior is rationally applied by school leaders who have remained in the organization for a longer time to strengthen the systematic approach. It was found that leaders’ actions orientation with high-on task were more effective, while leadership actions orientation with high-on relations generated social harmony. The results suggest that leadership actions-oriented behavioral flexibility and mobility can be maintained by articulating high relations to low relations and high task to low task, not necessarily from task to relations or relations to task alone. In doing so, a leader’s personality is prevented from distortions and behavior dysfunction.
Keywords
Introduction
The educational system in Finland is considered to be one of the best in the world. If this is to be believed, how did Finland achieve such success, while having been oppressed by neighboring nations during political conflicts in the 1930s and late 1940s? The quest to achieve this success lay solely in the hands of the educational leadership of the nation. Although educational leadership can have an immense impact on the educational system of the country, school leadership can simultaneously make an equivalent contribution to growth from within the system. Effective school leadership leads to school success, which, in turn, can help a nation’s citizens to thrive. Accordingly, to improve the educational system, only qualified teachers should be allowed to teach. Similarly, in Finland, to be a qualified teacher, a master’s degree is mandatory, while schooling starts at the age of 7 for Grade 1 (Sahlberg, 2010).
The Finnish education system is well known through the excellent performance of its students in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, the standard of this performance has recently fallen (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development [OECD], 2016). In Finland, free education offers equality to all and shows concern for all students, including special students (disabled students) from primary education through to higher education. In line with this principle of equality, Finnish legislation has initiated a series of special-education laws to protect the well-being of the special student. This legislature provides for three models. These are general support, intensive support, and special support (Pesonen et al., 2015). This enables school leaders to support a quality education system in schools by offering adequate facilities with a focus on special needs and care (Rajbhandari, 2016a). Furthermore, this offers opportunities for special students to enroll in schools that are conveniently located. The model for special education differs from that of general education, and offers equality and justice for all. Consequently, it became mandatory for the special-student law to be applied in all schools in Finland, which posed certain logistical and financial challenges. Emanating from these challenges were new problems with the management in school and its leadership due to the emergence of new contextual variations in the school environment.
To achieve progress toward change, the school leader is equally challenged to “grow” the periphery of qualified teachers, especially to direct and instruct the teachers toward the betterment of students and school development. Therefore, school leaders as change agents face challenging moments in leadership, where contextual intelligence and contextual experience, which were initially explained as
Despite the fact that variations within and between contexts is inevitable, school leaders have to respond appropriately to prevent situational catastrophe. In responding, school leaders are able to apply various patterns of behavioral styles to coordinate school actors (such as teachers, administrative staff, and students) by instituting collaboration for organizational change. This further enables school leaders to implement suitable behavioral leadership patterns to motivate school actors to adopt immediate organizational changes. Consequently, this study explored the leadership readiness behavioral pattern in three schools that had different environmental cultures, climates, school sizes, and capacities in Finland.
In this study, leadership behavior was explored as a case study to identify the appropriate leadership behavior of each school leader. This study was conducted by constructing a theoretical framework incorporating
With regard to the philosophical paradigm of leadership behavioral patterns, school leadership readiness—to attain competence, prudency, and pragmatic endurance—can be attained by team building with task orientation, team bonding with relational orientation, and banking both the behavioral actions orientations with intelligence. To endure the internal affairs of the academic realm, school leadership has to attempt to curtail pitfalls by communicating effectively, and becoming confident in attaining the common goal by winning trust for employee productivity.
Leadership effectiveness and success depends largely on the leader’s behavioral patterns. Using behavioral leadership theory, studies conducted at Ohio State University in the year 1945 and University of Michigan in the year 1947 (Bass, 2008; Likert, 1967) both identified two types of leader behavior as either “initiation” or “consideration,” “people-oriented” or “task-oriented,” and “employee-centered” or “job-centered.” Later, these behaviors were named as
According to Yulk (2008), effective leadership behaviors and programs are mutually compatible for creating synergies effects rather than the side effects. School leadership success and effectiveness significantly enhances teacher’s efficiency, and student accolade. According to the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (2005), leaders’ behavioral pattern need to support the student performance through the communication with teachers for their effectiveness. The laboratory modeled leadership behavioral patterns in terms of a
Therefore, in exploring leadership actions-oriented behavior within the relations- and task-orientated behavioral approaches used to accommodate change and development in schools, two research questions were constructed:
Method
This study made use of qualitative analysis. The study on leadership actions-oriented behavior of principals in Finnish schools was guided by
As mentioned, behavioral leadership theory was first explored by the Ohio State University in 1945, and later by the University of Michigan in 1947, using a quantitative tool developed to explain leader behavior—the Leaders Behavioral Description Questionnaire (LBDQ; Stogdill, 1963). This analysis and the LBDQ were highly acclaimed and accepted within leadership study. Although the LBDQ is quantitatively formulated, this study used key aspects from the LBDQ to understand the qualitative paradigm of leadership actions-oriented behavior by incorporating leadership relations and task orientation.
This explorative study offered the opportunity to understand leadership’s actions orientation (blending relations and task) on a deeper level, which the quantitative tool could not achieve. Although relations and task orientation are viewed as separate behaviors, these two leadership behaviors are not mutually exclusive, but together strengthen the bond for leaders to execute an actions orientation that utilizes these behavioral patterns simultaneously.
Moreover, this study is viewed as a different case, with each context constituting a different case. Nevertheless, the cases are linked by certain commonalities, with school leaders acting as “gap fillers” and adapting their behavioral orientation according to the situations of need within the different contexts. Furthermore, within its area of responsibility and accountability, leadership competence needs to combine relations- and task-oriented behavior to initiate actions-orientated behavior that enables school principals to fill the gap between internal and external variations.
Research Tools and Techniques
For the purpose of qualitatively exploring the leadership behavioral patterns of Finnish school principals, one-on-one in-depth interviews were conducted with school actors. All the interviews were tape-recorded for reliability and validity checking. Two different sets of interviews were designed. One set of interviews was designed to analyze the interviews with school principals, while the other set of interviews was designed to analyze and explore the followership domain. These two sets of interview schedules captured the voices of school actors involved within the school setting. Furthermore, these two sets of interview schedules enabled me to verify and triangulate the data collected from different data sources, which included a descriptive analysis of leader initiatives and behavioral patterns.
Data Collection and Analysis Procedures
The method of data collection was conducted by tape-recording. Every detail was recorded to analyze qualitative meanings, which further enabled me to understand the feelings of the respondent on a deeper level. The respondents in this study were school principals, teachers, administrative staff, and special-student teachers. Each interview lasted for at least 1 hr, and a few interviews were longer than an hour. Interviews were conducted in English and Finnish. For reliability and validity checking, the tape-recorded interviews were transcribed, and Finnish interviews were translated and further interpreted to give meaning to the data. The transcribing was completed by me, which offered me the additional benefit of understanding each interviewee and capturing their feelings. Although the interviewee’s views were never shared with the respondent, they were used to cross-verify the findings from the leadership behavior descriptive analysis.
The respondent data were triangulated further to verify the analysis of the leadership behavior descriptions of relations and task orientation toward initiating the actions orientation. This technique of analysis offered validation and reliability for additional cross verification.
Results
This section reports on the cases of three schools, and endeavors to highlight the leadership actions-oriented behavioral style by articulating both relations-oriented and task-oriented behavior. The results are based on the analysis of the reflective critical views of the school actors. These collective views were cross-verified by triangulation analysis. However, the three cases are presented independently to address the research questions.
Leadership Actions-Oriented Behavior: The Case of School A
Leadership behaviors and skills are essential to use in conjunction with trusted staff (Goff, 2003). Identifying trusted staff requires leadership to show consideration of behavioral patterns to motivate staff toward task accomplishment. In taking such a necessary step, appropriate articulation of relations and task is needed to enhance leader actions orientation by blending the two behaviors. A possible way of knowing and understanding the staff within the school organization is to get involved with them and build good relational behavior. This actions orientation, which is high-on relations, emphasizes the need for school leaders to bring about motivation within the followership domain. In the case of School A’s principal, her compassionate and generous characters resulted in her becoming successful and trusted through initiating relations-orientations to accommodate the entire body of school actors during times of change. Supporting her actions-oriented behavior of using relational approaches, she stated,
As being the head of school, my prime concern is to think about the school, and its staff. I believe in team work, working together as a group has helped us so far. I am lenient towards my staff.
Furthermore, she added,
We work in an open environment. We share our issues and matters together with each other for the betterment of our school. It helps us to figure out our problem as well, where we are lacking in our teaching method and how much we have achieved in our goal so far.
Actions-orientated behavior toward building relations with school actors inspires the working professional staff to collaborate with the principal when dramatic change takes place in the school. Moreover, the principal’s actions-oriented behavior of closely collaborating with the vice principal to undertake the change process, and bring about an open-door policy of information sharing, helped to motivate the professional community. In support of this approach, the vice principal mentions,
She believes in sharing information with her staff, even though the decision is made by me or any other staff, she takes the responsibility of that decision on her shoulder. The bond of trust between principal and her staff is very strong. In one word I would like to say, we rely and trust on each other.
This style of actions-oriented behavior describes the principal’s behavioral approach toward school effectiveness. The principal’s actions-orientated strategy, used to influence her staff, was through information sharing. This articulated behavioral orientations by the school leader strengthened the building of a strong foundation of relations among and between the leaders and followership, thus winning the trust of the followership domain. The vice principal described this by saying,
The most important thing in this school about head teacher and other staff is, she trust all her staff. She shares all her information with us, which makes the school environment effective and cozy to work in. She always wants to have everything, this way she can mention that this is the way I work, she always takes responsibilities for the decision she makes and even though if they comes from the staff or from me.
This actions orientation, which is high-on relations and low-on task, empowered in-group members with crucial information. Information sharing is a way toward building trust among and between the school professional communities. Information is shared within the trusted and who have the in-group status. In school settings, trust is one of the contributing factors shaping for instrumental and forming value-based attitude. To be trusted and trusting people are both complicated task for school leader. Leadership confidence and communicative power to illustrate the vision and show direction is necessary and essential at the time of accommodating change, which is accomplished together with the trusted individuals of the in-group. To support this view of the principal’s open policy trustfulness, an administrative staff member added,
The major thing about our principal is that she equips us with sufficient information that we need, and I think she trust on her staff.
Although leadership behavior is concerned with relations- and task-orientated behavior, it is equally essential for the school leader to apply these two behaviors reciprocally to bring about effectiveness. The articulation of these two behavioral styles generates an actions-orientated leadership style that is either high or low on task and relations, depending on the situational need of the context and the followers. Consequently, trusting and being trusted produce effectiveness. This behavioral style led to an open socio-environs, which reflected a good organizational climate. The relational-behavioral orientation of the school leader in this school enabled the staff to openly share the problems they faced. Teacher 1 stated,
She is very honest and frank, whatever is there in her mind, she always tells us openly, whenever we discuss about any problems, and she speaks her words openly. This is why we go to her whenever we have our problem.
Whether articulating and to orient task and relational behavior are mutually exclusive or not, articulating these behaviors according to feelings, emotions, and level of trust can vary, which can be maintained by taking the necessary actions toward relations building. Nevertheless, nature of leadership behavior is flexible and is determined by the contextual settings and the leader’s SACI. According to Yulk (2008), a She is very helpful and she helps everyone in need, whether its teacher or students or even a parent, she is always by our side at times of need and this is why we rely in her. This is her strongest point.
Articulation of the actions-oriented behavior of a leader heavily relies and depends upon the contextual variations. The contextual variation of School A was to bring about changes in the school to align it with international standards by improving the school’s structure, leadership capabilities, and followership capacities. This was a radical change initiated by the national educational department and municipality. In bringing about this change and development, the leader’s role was mainly concerned with motivation and commitment of the school actors. In directing them toward adopting the changes, the leader was required to articulate an actions orientation that included both relations- and task-oriented behavior. Nevertheless, many school actors resisted the change. To harmonize the organizational climate, the school principal focused on collaboration among the school actors by adopting an actions orientation high-on relations-oriented behavior. This approach encouraged the staff to develop the motivation to work. In other words, by exhibiting an actions-oriented behavior toward relations, the school leader was able to participate with, and support, the school’s professional community. In connection to Teacher 3, the school principal demonstrated her supportive behavior and concern for people and this actions orientation further contributed values to their work–life values:
If I have to name it then that would be our principal, she is very encouraging and supportive.
Moreover, articulating an actions orientation toward relations-oriented behavior has become a successful phenomenological approach for many leaders. However, leadership readiness is essential for leadership behavioral flexibility and mobility (Rajbhandari, 2014). However, both task- and relations-orientations are intertwined and inseparable. Moreover, behavioral articulation within the followership domain also contributes a pivotal role in shaping and articulating leadership behavior. The leadership behavior depends largely on, and changes significantly, according to, the actions-oriented behavioral pattern of the followers and followership domain. Leadership behavior, therefore, is closely interlinked with the followership domain and the followers’ actions orientation.
The principal played an essential role in establishing a relations orientation in School A through team building and bonding for collaboration, which generated the driving stimulus for change and development. The principal’s strategy of actions-oriented behavior high-on relations was required to enrich team building to facilitate change and remove constraints. Teacher 3 in her statement (above) indicates the importance of the principal’s role in articulating an actions orientation toward high-on relations and low-on task, and how this generated collaborations within the followership domain.
Although the principal articulated high-on relations, development, with the building renovations and curriculum changes, was initiated by task-oriented behavior. This articulation of actions-oriented behavior enables leaders to blend both the behavioral orientation of relations and task simultaneously and, where necessary, to achieve school effectiveness. However, too much concern for followership can sometime divert from actual task and can generate weaknesses rather than strength.
The school principal’s versatility in articulating a behavioral orientation, that attained the vision of the higher level national educational authority, was achieved by empowering the school actors through relational bonding between individuals and within the team. Her leadership actions-oriented behavior, of distributing some of her works to the in-group, also leaped the school toward success.
Moreover, the vice principal supported the actions-oriented behavior of the principal regarding distribution of authority to trusted in-group, which afforded time for the principal to concentrate on the developmental aspects of school, rather than being completely absorbed by daily routine activities. The actions orientation toward high-on relations of the leader also articulated her SACI in generating the driving forces vigorous by showing appreciation for the school actors. This appreciation motivated the school teachers performance, and to keep pace with the radically changing environments. Team building played a significant role in accomplishing the mission of internationalizing the school. Actions-oriented behavior for participation and supportiveness toward the school actors substantially improved staff performance as a result of improved motivation due to the appreciation they received for their efforts.
In Finland, complementing and giving praise are not the cultural norm. However, articulating actions-oriented behavior toward a high-on relations orientation encouraged and motivated the school actors through the acknowledgment of their work. Therefore, the actions-oriented relational behavior of the principal empowered her to win trust from within the followership domain. In support of this view, Teacher 2 acknowledged,
I admire for her bold decision-making nature whenever needed. You need to have this guts when you are handling 50 teachers. I really respect her for her sharp mind.
Moreover, an actions-oriented leadership behavioral approach combines the essential leadership components toward management of timing, tasking, and teaming by effectively interacting the organizational vision, and fostering trust of integration within the professional communities. In this school, the leadership for task orientation within the educational areas was shared with the vice principal. The vice principal aligned her strategy with that of the principal, thus maintaining a high-on relations-oriented behavior with close monitoring of the task.
Leadership Actions-Oriented Behavior: The Case of School B
Articulating the blend between relations- and task-oriented behaviors generates actions-oriented behavior, which the leader directs through their practical intelligence grounded in the leader’s SACI. This articulation of behavioral orientations enables leadership effectiveness. According to Batagiannis (2011), effective leaders establish an identity for analyzing the learning and leading through deep transformations. According to Currie and Lockett (2007), leaders need to adhere to the four components of
These leadership transformational elements enhance leadership flexibility by developing an understanding of the contextual setting, and articulating the appropriate behavior by blending either high-on task or low-on relations and vice versa. Task- and relations-oriented behaviors cannot be separated, but blending these two behavioral orientations can generate a flexibility of leadership style. In connection to this, Hersey and Blanchard (1977) proposed various leadership behaviors such as task-oriented behavior, relations-oriented behavior, combination of task and relations behavior, and neither task nor relations behavior. Nevertheless, blending these two behaviors appropriately, and to the degree that suits the immediate context, is determined by the context and the followership domain (Rajbhandari, 2006). Moreover, appropriate blending can generate leadership effectiveness and leader success, which can be articulated through leadership actions-oriented behavior by understanding the immediate context and the followership, and adopting the appropriate behavioral pattern that suits the immediate context.
In most cases, school leaders attempt to adapt leadership behavior by combining task and relations. However, relational behavior is responsive to sensitivity, emotionality, and attitudinal, and enables the leaders’ low flexibility. However, task-oriented behavior achieves effectiveness and organizational commitment. Blending both task and relations, toward articulating actions-orientated behavior high-on relations, is important in maintaining a harmonious organizational climate and for leadership success.
Articulating actions-oriented behavior can be productive if a balance between relations and task orientation is achieved. In seeking harmony, a relational orientation is important; whereas to remain effective, task orientation is necessary. Articulating an appropriate blend of these two behaviors depends on leader intellectual actions and experience, within that contextual setting, and leader SACI.
Rajbhandari (2012) states that a Here in Finland our way of working is quite lenient but sometimes it’s essential to be autocratic, especially when you need to take decision promptly on difficult matters. In those cases you need to be strict so that you can implement your work on time.
In response to the principal’s actions-oriented behavior with a high-on tasks orientation, Special Teacher 1 showed support for this approach when she said,
She is [a] very hard working person and she expects the same from us which is good. She remains isolated from us and likes to have control over the school matters, she believes in sharing the responsibilities equally, she is an example herself but she is not being able to devote her time in our teaching lesson. I also think that she demands too much from us.
This view of the leader’s actions-oriented behavior with a high-on task orientation was also supported by the vice principal:
She is demanding but I like, she expects a lot from us which I like it, she like to do things promptly and properly, she is organized and structured. I think she expect a lot from us. There are clear line of responsibility for us to carry it out. She is a kind of person, who wants responsibility of the organization but she is not into relations.
Articulating actions-orientated behavior with a high-on task orientation is important to ensure that the matter at hand is addressed, and which often requires immediate action. This articulation of behavior produces an autocratic behavioral style, which initiates the leaders to illustrate their SACI for actions on urgent matters. In this regard, the principal said,
I present myself as a strict person inside the organization. One has to come out from their comfort zone to work harder for the betterment of their organization; this is the reason of me being strict and not having a democratic approach.
An actions-oriented behavior with a high-on task orientation was demonstrated by the principal; however, the principal also articulated an actions-oriented behavior that was low-on relations while working with the people. Moreover, the principal articulated her behavior toward the task by working even harder herself. However, the principal does have concern for people and her actions strategy for managing people was articulated as She is trustworthy though demanding, but very reliable. If she makes a decision now she will stick to it. Her opinion doesn’t change for any new ideas. She is a very organized person. I like the way how she looks around the school matters, makes summary and process them. She is quite good in handling matters and making conclusive decisions.
Moreover, within the I like our principal because she is very down to earth. She has time for everybody. While walking down the corridor, if we stop her and ask her something, she gives us time. She looks very confident and calm.
Articulating a leadership actions-oriented behavior toward high-on task, while maintaining consistency and reliability, additionally contributed to the principal acquiring trust from within the followership domain. This view was further supported by Teacher 2, who states,
She is a very peaceful person. In terms of financial matters, I have trust on her and I think she also trusts me as well.
Although her actions orientation indicates low-on relations but high-on task, it was evident that leadership effectiveness is evaluated by the results of articulating the behavioral blend. Nevertheless, effectiveness is achieved by leadership ability to quickly assess the contextual variations and transforming according to their intellectuality that is generated from the leader’s contextual intelligence, contextual experience, and SACI, and then to articulate the behavioral pattern best suited to the needs of that situation. Reflecting on this, Teacher 2 admits,
When I speak, she listen to me and never interrupts, which I like about her. She is demanding and I am ok with it, as I believe that I am in an expert group.
In educational settings, leaders are often redeployed to different academic places with the anticipation of bringing about cumulative-progressive development in the system where urgent changes are needed. Nevertheless, the success of a school highly depends on the leadership SACI and behavioral orientation. Leadership behavior is also influenced by the contextual variations and the cultural environs of the organizational settings, which can include the legacy left by the former leader. This legacy can have a strong effect on cultural binding, which can be difficult to change. Moreover, new leaders bring along a new culture. Therefore, new leadership approaches and styles can have an immense impact on instigating changes in the school culture. For this to occur in a harmonious manner, it is necessary for the leader to articulate actions-orientated behavior by evaluating the situational variables. This principal initially adopted a leadership behavioral style toward high-on task-oriented behavior, which allowed her to “put things together” and further enabled the delegation of authority. Meanwhile, in this initial phase of “settling in” to the new organizational structure, and discarding the legacy of the former leader, the new appointee had to initially centralize power and then delegate appropriately. For this to be maintained in a professional way, leadership actions-oriented behavior enabled the principal to initiate the blending of behavioral orientations by focusing high-on tasks and low-on relational approaches. The vice principal indicated this behavioral approach of the principal when it came to reengineering the school structural context for accountability and responsibility. He mentions,
She does everything quite very fast to change, this is because with the former principal, he wasn’t taking leadership. Talking about our previous principal, he doesn’t have leadership qualities, so the schools leadership went into the hands of, for instant, mathematician group, Finnish language teacher groups or sometime English teachers group. The power were spread everywhere. The former principal does not have his own power and willingness in his decision. Our present principal took all the authority back for herself. She made clear to everyone her responsibilities. Of course, there were some opposing but she was very prompt and fast in her work by restructuring and reorganizing the distributed powers and responsibilities that were previously shared unsystematically amongst the groups of schools members.
In many cases, articulating the appropriate blend of behaviors is difficult, and may not suit the situational variations. This can reflect as a single-sided behavioral adaptation either too high on task or too high on relations. Although high-on task-oriented behavior influences leadership to adopt an autocratic leadership style, this leadership style does not necessarily have to be instructive with the people in an organization. However, this single-sided style can remain strongly attached within a working environment by adapting behavioral attitude, which enables the employees to follow the organization’s systematic behavioral procedures. The vice principal states this behavioral by stating,
She is with us but her prime concern and priority always lies within the organization for making the school better for all of us and the students that leads to progress and development.
In addition, Teacher 2 supported this view by saying,
At the time of changes, we need a strong leader, who can lead us and the school and I think she is the one, who have strong willingness to bring about changes and development.
Articulating the right blend to combine task and relations orientation is complex. However, actions toward maintaining leadership equilibrium by adapting both these behaviors can bring about organizational effectiveness by doing the right things at the right time. In connection to support the view of the vice principal, Teacher 1 described the leadership behavioral articulation of orienting actions toward high-on task and low-on relations by saying,
I think some of my colleagues experienced that our principal is very strict. But you know, sometimes you need to have this kind of strict behavior, when you are in such a position. Being a principal she has to take care of everything, which sometimes makes the situation quite difficult and complicated.
In addition to leadership autocratic behavior, the principal also exhibited democratic behavior, which reflected an actions orientation that blends relations-oriented behavior with task-orientated behavior. Moreover, the results suggest that the principal is most often engaged with the working atmosphere; this limits her from displaying relations-oriented behavior as, and when, needed by the followership domain. Moreover, the Finnish method of good relational behavior is to offer ample space to the employees, by good faith, and by trusting them with their work. Appraising and complementing are not cherished as this is not common culture in Finland.
The principal of School B articulated her actions-oriented behavior toward high-on task due to the contextual setting of the organization. This was also due to the legacy left by the former school leader, which generated disturbances through the uneven distribution of authority and power to the school staff. Hence, to centralize the unwisely distributed authorities, the leader’s actions strategy was to enhance reengineering the structural reform and decentralize the accountability to those best suited. This situation, therefore, influenced the school principal to articulate a single-sided orientation and adopt an autocratic style of leadership, as her actions orientation tended toward high-on task-orientated behavior and low-on relational approaches.
Leadership Actions-Oriented Behavior: The Case of School C
Action-oriented behavior that blends task and relations to the appropriate degree enables the leader to maintain leadership success and effectiveness, and satisfy the followership domain. The followership domain accepts the leadership’s actions-oriented behavior if this leadership behavior satisfies the immediate context and ensures, and potentially enhances, future satisfaction. House (1996) adds that leader behavior is accepted within the followership domain if it aims to satisfy the instrumental values of the followers. As stated, relations- and task-oriented behavior is not mutually exclusive. It is the leader’s SACI that blends it appropriately by articulating an actions orientation between these two behaviors, which may either be high or low on both these behaviors as determined by the extant contextual variations.
According to Leithwood, Days, Sammons, Harris, and Hopkins (2006), leadership behavior can fluctuate and so does the effectiveness. Not all organizations are alike. Organizational values, culture, and people differ from one another, and so does the leader. Thus, leadership effectiveness is interconnected with the organizational structure, context, people’s maturity, and the organizational system. These variables have a profound impact on leadership effectiveness.
According to behavioral leadership theory, blending relations and task orientation appropriately, and articulating actions-oriented behavior, can generate leadership effectiveness and success. This blending of behaviors can vary according to organizational context. This can further enable the actions-oriented behavior of leaders to articulate high or low on either behavior, which is mediated by practical intelligence and SACI. The results suggest that the principal of School C articulated actions-oriented behavior toward high-on task orientation, for which Teacher 2 mentions,
She wants control of everything as she is in that top position; she hasn’t felt that she has that power naturally. This is also because she wants to keep aloof from the teachers.
Although effectiveness is desired by all, it is equally necessary to desire and accept leadership effectiveness. Leadership effectiveness means also accepting a leader’s actions orientation toward the achievement of goals. This requires greater focus on tasks than relations. Therefore, leadership effectiveness brings school success. Although success and effectiveness are often viewed as the same, it is not the same within leadership study. Success can be achieved through a high-on relations orientation; whereas effectiveness is achieved by a high-on tasks orientation. Therefore, to achieve both success and effectiveness, actions-oriented behavior requires the appropriate blend of both relations and task orientations to satisfy, and be accepted by, the followership domain. Thus, articulating the appropriate blend of relations and task enables a leadership actions orientation that initiates a systematic approach within task parameters, and that builds a harmonious cultural environment through relations, which offers a leader success and effectiveness. However, if effectiveness only is a primary concern of the organization, then an actions orientation high-on task is essential to generate standard operating procedures and policies that school actors abide by. However, actions orientations that are high-on task-oriented behavior may not satisfy the followership. This is supported by the principal, who explains her leadership autocratic style and task-oriented behavior in the following manner:
I am demanding person and I do demand more from myself than with others. My job as a principal is to focus on the betterment of the school and the children. I am always with my staff if they are willing to follow the rules and regulations as instructed by the law and educational act. This way we all can strengthen and this may not make all happy.
Interestingly, is an autocratic style always a consequence of a high-on task actions orientation? Although an autocratic style and task-oriented behavior offer similar views, they do differ. Behaviors are responsive to change, whereas style is grounded in personality, which is inflexible and difficult to change. Moreover, the personality of School C’s principal reflected an autocratic style, and her behavioral orientation was articulated toward a high-on task behavioral orientation. Nevertheless, her behavior-articulated actions orientation of blending both task and relations was shown by recalling the distributed powers from the followership domain, and then reallocating it to in-groups members who were effective and committed to the change and development of the school. Teacher 3 states,
Our school principal as a leader, she is a very strict person. If you do your work properly then you get support from her. If you are lacking in your task then you will find yourself to be in trouble with her. I feel that she is fair to all because nowadays in school, sometimes we have to deal with difficult parents, in that case if you are doing your work properly then you get support from the boss.
The results suggest that the recalling of the previously unwisely distributed power was essential to bring about cultural changes in the school. This actions orientation resulted in the principal demonstrating an autocratic leadership style by articulating task-oriented behavior, which was profoundly suitable to the immediate contextual setting. This articulation of actions orientation toward high-on task was contextually necessary to implement the instructions from the higher educational authorities. Therefore, the urgency for change also caused her to follow the rules and procedures of legal policies of the roles and responsibilities of the principalship as mentioned in the contractual statement. In connection to this, Teachers 3 mentions,
She likes to take all the authority in her hand. Our previous principal was not like that. He used to delegate all his work to all the staff. He used to trust his vice principal, teachers and administrative staff. It’s not like he didn’t want to work but those can be better done by us rather than he would do them. But this principal wants to do everything by herself and she is working from morning to evening.
Actions-oriented behavior enables the leader to articulate the behavioral pattern appropriately to achieve both leadership success and leadership effectiveness. Accordingly, at the time of dramatic changes that need to be urgently implemented, the school principal articulated her actions-oriented behavior by blending high-on task and low-on relations, which was appropriate at the initial phase. This enabled her to completely rely on and follow the standard procedures and policies of principalship. Furthermore, her personality demonstrated an autocratic style, while her actions-oriented behavior articulated high-on task and low-on relations. Supporting this view, Teacher 4 explains the leader’s autocratic style and her behavior by saying,
She is very demanding and strict with the rules and policies. We have to follow the state rules and we need to fill the papers before the deadline and she is very particular with all these official matters. She works too much and she does make everything sure that everyone is doing at their best in their duties.
Although actions orientation toward high-on task offers effectiveness, the blending of these two behavioral patterns appropriately can offer both success and effectiveness. This actions-oriented behavior, of articulating the blend of behavioral patterns, generates motivation and commitment. In connection to this view, the principal’s actions orientation of blending both behaviors appropriately, toward high-on task and low-on relations, offered motivation to committed school actors. In addition, the actions orientation also maintained a conducive working environment and teacher satisfaction. Teacher 1 explains the professional conducive environment of the school by saying,
Here in Finland, teachers have lots of liberty to think about their work. They can do their work the way they want them to do. So far we have a good working relationship with each other. Everyone respects one another and you know, it’s you who gets on better with teachers but at least everyone has good professional relationship. A good professional relations doesn’t mean that we have to become best friends; professional relationship essential.
To maintain work professionalism, school leaders need to be confident, have good communicating skills, and have trust among and between followers and in the followership domain. Articulating actions-oriented behavior by focusing on high-on task is not an easy behavioral pattern for a leader to adopt, unless the leader has complete knowledge about the work and understanding of organizational climate. Therefore, articulating an actions orientation toward high-on task also requires leaders to be confident within the professional community, to communicate the organizational vision, and to win the followership domain with a level of trust to collaborate in team building.
In educational settings, the followership domain is comprised of mature and intelligent individuals. This enables the leader to work with teams by building the level of trust among and between the leaders and the followership domain, which makes the organization successful while retaining work effectiveness. Moreover, both the success and effectiveness of leadership are interrelated with leader confidence and experience. In this connection, Teacher 2 mentions the principal’s confidence in this way,
I also think that she is that type of person who desire perfection; that’s why she is handling everything by herself. She is very confident in working and she knows what she is doing.
The results also suggest that, within the followership domain, school actors felt that, although the principal’s experience and confidence was leading the school toward success, the trust level from the leader toward the staff was low. This is because the principal had not been completely able to understand the contextual variations and climatic environment. Although actions orientation toward an autocratic style that is high-on task can lead to organization effectiveness through change and development, it may not completely enable the school leader to learn, know, and understand the context, followership, and the followers. Teacher 4 comments on this behavior of the principal by saying,
She wants to handle everything by herself. She wants to have control in everything. Sometimes she gives us feeling that we are not trusted, however for me, it is not a problem.
Although this principal’s actions orientation enabled task achievement, she failed to build a level of trust with the followership. However, this actions orientation enabled the leader to completely rely on the educational law and regulations. This furthermore generated teacher commitment at work by allocating additional work hours for reporting, as stated in the educational law. This commitment of school actors was found to be an attitudinal commitment that was driven by the leadership’s actions-oriented behavior high-on task.
Moreover, teachers held expectations regarding the school leader, which was collaboration in a relational manner. The school actors believed that the leader’s actions orientation toward high-on relations would motivate them and lead to high commitment. Teachers also expected from the school leader an appropriate blending of both task and relations in her actions orientation, by enhancing participation and support to further enhance goal achievement. Hersey and Blanchard (1977) support the view that appropriate blending of behavioral patterns can produce the right “energy” leading toward motivation and commitment, and create a good climate within an organization. This articulation of behavior is influenced by a leader’s personality.
In support of the role that personality plays in influencing actions orientation, Boyle (1995) states that the personality of an individual can contribute toward behavioral tendencies. These behavioral tendencies are the differences in attitude, orientations, and decision making. In addition to the behavioral tendencies of school leaders, the principal in this case showed behavioral tendencies that reflected actions-oriented behavior toward high-on task, which enabled her to incorporate rules and regulations. These behavioral articulations enabled her to restructure and reengineer the school’s internal policy and cultural aspects by centralizing the power that was unwisely distributed among the members. This created effectiveness at the initial phase, enabling her to bring about the required changes and development.
Initiating structural reform was essential in forming a new working culture and climatic environment. This was made possible through the principal’s articulation of her actions-oriented behavior, by blending behaviors focused high-on task and low-on relations, which brought about effectiveness. In addition, this improved teacher commitment to more responsibility and accountability in their work. Moreover, articulating the blend of behavioral patterns appropriately is essential. This equally concerned time, task, and individuals. While reflecting upon the school leadership actions-oriented behavior, the principal was more concerned with time and task. Reciprocally, this behavior of greater concern for time and task impacted on the followership domain, thus generating a
Discussion and Conclusion
Leadership behavior of relations and task orientation is not mutually exclusive. Moreover, appropriate blending of these two behaviors is essential and is achieved by articulating either high-on task or low-on relations, or high-on relations and low-on task, or high-high on both and vice versa. Appropriate articulation of the behavioral blend generates the actions-oriented behavioral style. This is produced by the leader’s SACI.
Leaders’ SACI articulates behavioral orientations by focusing both on task and relations, appropriately generating an actions orientation that fits the context and followership, which, in return, enables leaders to become successful and effective. Nevertheless, articulating the needed behavior appropriately requires leadership flexibility and mobility; this is generated by the leadership’s SACI. This leadership flexibility and mobility, grounded in SACI, enables the leaders to become acquainted with the contextual settings, and to understand the followership domain. Although leadership effectiveness and success depends largely upon the leader’s SACI, it is equally important to know and understand the followership in an organization. Therefore, it can be said that knowing and understanding the followership domain is the key ingredient in enabling leadership success and effectiveness. Thus, articulating an actions-oriented behavior grounded in leadership SACI, and by blending relations and task appropriately to suit the followership domain, can enhance both leadership and followership success and effectiveness.
Toward the articulation and blending of behavior, School A’s principal adopted an actions orientation that was highly focused on a relational approach. This may have been due to the personality factor that naturally caused her to remain democratic and participative. However, in School B and School C, the principals articulated an actions-oriented behavior that was high-on task orientation. Although both task and relations orientation are not mutually exclusive, they can be articulated simultaneously either by executing high or low on either orientation, depending on the contextual variables. Furthermore, in Finland, school leaders executed both behavioral approaches appropriately, which contributed to the improvement of the school, and toward changes and development. Moreover, this was possible by articulating appropriate behavioral patterns according to the needs of the context.
Although both relations and task orientation are equally important, the results suggest that an actions orientation toward high-on relations generates less leadership flexibility than an actions orientation toward high-on task. The results also suggest that school leaders who articulated an actions orientation high-on task were expected to reorientate their behavior toward relations by the followership domain. However, the followership domain did not expect leadership with an actions orientation high-on relations to change toward a high-on task-orientated behavior. This is also supported by Rajbhandari (2013), as his research findings suggest that leadership elasticity is high on leadership task orientation, and less in relations orientation behavior. The results of this study collaborate his findings that task-oriented behavioral styles of leaders are effective, while relations orientation behavior is more likely to achieve efficiency.
The actions-oriented behavior of School A’s principal, which was high-on relations and low-on task, resulted in her exhibiting a democratic leadership style. This further enabled her to collaborate and participate within the followership domain. This behavioral pattern generated leadership success and motivated the followership to accommodate changes. The motivation was achieved through social interaction within the followership domain and between leadership and followership. However, the actions orientation of the leaders of School B and School C, which were high-on task and low-on relations, resulted in a degree of autocratic leadership, which enabled these principals to achieve leadership effectiveness. This articulation of behavior enabled the followership domain to steer their behavioral pattern toward adopting changes and development through commitment.
Although both behavioral orientations are equally essential to achieving motivation and commitment, the orientation is best determined by the situation and the contextual variations. Therefore, a school leadership’s approach to articulating their actions orientations, either focusing on relations or task, depends upon the contextual setting and the immediate concerns of the organization in bringing about change and development.
Situations and contextual variations dominate leadership actions orientation. Thus, it is essential for school leaders to understand their immediate contextual need and organizational variables. Reaching such an understanding offers school leaders the ability to articulate their actions orientation by appropriately blending relations and task to best suit the immediate context and organizational variables. Doing so can generate leadership success and effectiveness, and furthermore enhance motivation and commitment among the followership.
In the case of School A, the school leader had spent a long period at the same school. This offered her intimately knowledge of the organizational variables, and allowed her to blend within the followership domain. This enabled her to completely understand how the followership domain functions and how their needs can best be satisfied for the present and in the future, which she was able to build through a systematic approach of bonding and banking between leader and followers. Therefore, her actions orientation articulated high-on relations to strengthen this systematic approach even more, leading thus to successful changes and development during the radical overhauling of the school organization.
Moreover, in School B and School C, newly appointed school principals initially oriented their actions toward high-on task to gain school effectiveness, but were simultaneously learning about the organizational context and followership domain. The results suggest that this actions-oriented behavior focusing high on task was essential to allow them to accommodate change and development at the time of dramatic restructuring. This was because, both these principals had to deal with contextual variations in the cultural foundation influenced by the legacy of the former principals. However, because School B’s principal had spent more time in the school as compared with School C’s principal, her actions orientation toward relational approaches was higher in comparison with School C’s principal.
The legacy of former principals created a contrary cultural foundation to that of the new leaders’ expectations. In such a case, an ice-breaking actions strategy was of utmost importance in reengineering and restructuring the organization to regain and recall the unwisely distributed powers. This was achieved by initially centralizing it, and then redistributing it within the committed followership domain to build a systematic bond and bank. It was an essential actions orientation toward accommodating change and development. Moreover, new appointees, new education policies, and newly applied actions-oriented leadership behavior toward achieving these aspects generated a new context. This further generated variations in the context and in the followership domain.
The results show that the environmental context of School B and School C required the articulation of an actions orientation that was high-on task, which brought about change and development to accommodate the organizational variables to the leaders’ expectations. Although these contextual variations can cause difficulties to the leadership and followership, understanding the needs of immediate variables, and articulating the behavioral pattern appropriately to address these needs, can generate both leadership success and effectiveness by enabling followership motivation and commitment.
Toward addressing internal variations to incorporate external variables, a leader’s immediate concern is to understand these variations by reasoning, to take necessary courses of action, and to anticipate the expected results with tolerance, which is the implication of
In School A, external variations arose from the instruction by the municipality to internationalization the school and follow special-education rules as amended in educational act and law. In School B and School C, the external forces of applying special-education policies combined with the internal variations due to reengineering and restructuring created a double impact in the school environmental setting. These contextual variations, in all the schools explored, were the prime concern of the school leaders and their focal point. This enabled the school leaders to articulate the appropriate behavioral blend through an actions orientation that exhibited the behaviors best suited to the contextual settings.
Drawing from the discussions, the behavioral orientation of leadership actions orientation can be maintained by articulating from high relations to low relations, and from high task to low task, if not from between task to relations alone. This articulation of actions orientations within the same behavioral tendencies can prevent leaders’ personality drift from causing personality distortions and behavioral dysfunctional.
Conclusively, actions-oriented leadership behavior practically enables the leaders to articulate relations and task orientation appropriately, to maintain the followership domain, and to initiate motivation and commitment. This articulation of behavior toward actions orientation is guided by the leadership’s SACI.
In this exploration, it was found that leadership actions-oriented behavior was pragmatically articulated to meet the immediate contextual variations. In all three schools, articulation of relations and task enabled the leader to execute appropriate actions-orientated behavior to fill the gaps between internal and external variations to accommodate changes and development during a period of radical change. It was also found that leader personalities were a key ingredient in shaping leadership styles. Therefore, leadership personality, and leadership actions orientation toward appropriately executing relations and task, enabled the generation of motivation and commitment in the followership domain. Furthermore, motivation was achieved through an actions orientation that was high-on relations, and commitment was achieved through an actions orientation toward high-on task. In addition, an actions orientation toward high-on task enabled the leaders to bring about leadership effectiveness, and an actions orientation toward high-on relations offered leadership success. Although there is no single behavior that can lead to leadership success and effectiveness, actions oriented toward blending relations and task appropriately and thus suitable to the immediate context can lead toward an organization’s grand leap.
Moreover, contextual variation is inevitable; thus, articulating leadership’s actions orientation is necessary. In addition, both internal and external aspects can cause variations, which can create a gap in leadership and followership actions. In an effort to fill in the gaps of leadership behavioral discrepancies, a flexible behavioral actions orientation is essential. This can be maintained through leadership readiness for flexibility and mobility by articulating actions orientations differently from high relations to low relations, and from high task to low task, as well as from task to relations and vice versa. This maintains the leader’s personality and prevents distortion and dysfunctionality. In addition, appropriate articulation and blending induces leadership elasticity of behavioral actions.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.