Leadership is generally essential to leading an organization or a group of people to attain the organization’s vision and desired objectives. In this context, leadership constitutes different styles of leading people or an organization to attain its mission and vision: democratic, transformational, transnational, bureaucratic, transnational, servant laissez0fair, and autocratic leadership styles. Some of the most commonly applied leadership styles within the educational setting include transactional, democratic, situational, and transformational leadership styles (Al-Mansoori & Koç, 2019; Hilton et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2017). Transformational leadership refers to a leadership approach that encourages followers or team members to increase their efforts and attain objectives, especially those they never thought they would attain. Transactional leadership involves rewarding team members to meet the organization’s desired objectives. Democratic leadership involves the leader making important decisions grounded in followers’ inputs. The situational leadership style involves a leadership approach where leaders adapt their leading strategies to align with the current organizational needs or work environment. Effective leadership is mediated by an organization’s performance and the satisfaction of followers or team members, improving any learning institution’s image and productivity (Kızıloğlu, 2021). The effectiveness of leadership can be attained by adopting a contemporary dynamic leadership model, given academia’s current disruptive organizational environment (Abu-Rumman, 2021). This paper posits that while most leaders apply either of these leadership styles in educational institutions, they face a significant challenge of adopting an effective modern dynamic leadership model of leading their organizations to attain the learning institutions’ desired vision and objectives.
The Challenge of Adopting Dynamic Leadership Model in Educational Institutions
Adopting an effective modern dynamic leadership model in educational institutions presents a significant challenge for most leaders. Most fundamentally, a dynamic leadership model is defined as a dual-focused form of an adaptive leadership strategy in which the leader can react proactively to any disruptive changes (Harber & McMaster, 2018). This form of leadership is categorized as a modern approach that promotes organizational performance, especially within a highly disruptive and challenging environment to meet organizational needs. One of the essential tenets of leadership involves the ability of a leader to model effective behavior and inspire team members to attain the organization’s vision and objectives.
However, within the educational sector, most leaders are unable to ensure that followers or team members can accomplish shared objectives effectively due to a lack of implementation of a modern dynamic leadership strategy. Within any learning institution, the principal leader must hold a leadership position that enhances the learning institution’s performance and image. In support of this contention, Kalkan et al. (2020) noted that leadership manifested by principles of learning institutions positively impacts organizations by creating positive school culture leading to improving the organization’s image. To attain such a vision, the leader must adopt a model that ensures his or her leadership style promotes support for the leader’s followers, including staff members or faculty members, to support a positive organizational culture (Jamali et al., 2022). With the support of the followers, who may include a group of staff members, teachers, or faculty members, the objectives and vision of the leader for his or her department and, consequently, that of the entire learning organization will be attained. In this context, most leaders associated with educational learning organizations face the challenge of adopting a dynamic leadership model, flexible with the current disruptive environment of academia.
For instance, extant research shows that during the Covid-19 pandemic, leaders in higher learning institutions faced a significant challenge in maintaining good performance of learners due to the changing learning environment that required leaders to adopt a dynamic leadership model and integrate it with their current leadership style. Specifically, Day et al. (2020) argued that single leadership approaches, especially those unrelated to educational goals, including local and national contexts are not likely to attain success than accumulations and combinations of context-sensitive and value-led strategies that embody the complex and dynamic nature of learning institutions within the twenty-first-century era. Therefore, the lack of a dynamic leadership strategy to attain optimal performance presents a significant challenge within the contemporary academic environment.
Rationale and Theorized Approach to the Challenge
Dynamic leadership involves effective mentorship of followers to achieve personal and organizational objectives and reading and reacting to diverse situations and needs of the team members. In this context, the adoption of a dynamic leadership model in educational settings is essential in learning the changing disruptive academic environment and reacting to these changes by focusing on positive change, establishing a positive culture of teamwork, and augmenting the effective use of available resources like the use of time, as a most critical resource to attaining effective leadership that promotes organizational efficiency.
This paper emphasizes that most learning organizations, especially following the recent Covid-19 pandemic, have become a significant challenge in educational institutions due to a need to adopt a modern dynamic leadership approach to their existing leadership styles. According to research led by Khan et al. (2021), most leaders in the academic setting face significant challenges associated with leadership efficiency and organizational performance due to the continued use of traditional vertical leadership models within the current disrupting learning environment. Modern leadership styles require adopting a dynamic model of leadership that emphasizes diversity and equity to attain improved organizational performance within any organization.
However, learning institutions such as colleges and universities face the significant challenge of adopting and implementing a dynamic model of leadership to align with the changing learning environment. For instance, Odegard-Koester et al. (2020) showed that leaders in higher learning educational institutions faced significant challenges associated with planning within an environment with increased fears f job loss due to safety and healthy dynamic risks associated with the past Covid-19 pandemic. The authors further showed that the disruptive learning environment caused by the pandemic made it difficult for leaders, including university deans, to establish rapport with their staff and faculty members and promote a positive learning environment (Odegard-Koester et al., 2020). These challenges were mainly associated with the need for leaders to adopt a dynamic form of leadership within a disruptive academic learning environment.
Critical Synopsis of Relevant Literature, including Disconfirming Evidence
Extant literature demonstrates that the lack of adopting a dynamic form of leadership, especially within a disruptive environment, results in ineffective leadership and a decline in organizational performance. For instance, one of the most preventable problems of adopting a dynamic leadership approach within learning environments is a lack of trust among followers. In this context, Kruse et al. (2020) sort to explore some of the challenges leaders faced during the covid-19 pandemic in higher learning institutions across the United States. The authors applied a phenomenological research approach of inquiry grounded on a qualitative design to present their views on challenges impacting learning institutions during s crisis. Kruse et al. (2020) found that one of the challenges facing leaders in times of crisis included confronting racism and leading and managing their units during the Covid-19 pandemic. The participants noted that the instructional leadership model, especially about the planning of virtual learning, presented a significant challenge amongst all participants. Additionally, all participants noted a significant challenge associated with systemic racism stemming from findings from a lack of trust and respect, which resulted in significant divisions of ideological stances (Kruse et al., 2020).
A separate study conducted by Abu-Rumman (2021) showed that one of the challenges associated with leadership in higher learning institutions involved the creation of human capital. In particular, the author asserted that educational leaders who fail to adopt identify and adopt a dynamic model of leadership tailored to meet the organization’s needs, such as human capital creation through transformational leadership, need to improve the followers’ professional performance associated with human creation. In this context, Abu-Rumman’s (2021) findings suggest that effective leadership in a disrupted academic environment can be attained by implementing a dynamic form of leadership tailored to cultivating human capital creating by motivating followers to innovate and develop novel methods of improving and growing the path to an organization’s future success.
The success of any learning organization is associated with a positive organizational culture and image, which can be attained through adopting modern dynamic leadership models such as organizational justice. In this context, Khan et al. (2021) explored the impact of adopting an organizational justice leadership model on employees’ performance in HEIs (Higher Education Institutions), emphasizing the use of transactional and transformational leadership styles. The researchers discovered a significant mediation effect between organizational justice and the association between the transformational leadership approach and their followers’ performance (Khan et al., 2021).
However, other pieces of research have demonstrated that traditional leadership principles may be more appropriate in combating the challenge of adopting new dynamic leadership approaches to improve organizational performance and image. In this context, Kalkan et el. (2020) sort to explore the association between the leadership styles of educational administrators, organizational culture, and school culture based on the opinions of teachers from different schools in Turkey. Kalkan et el.’s (2020) findings indicated that school principals (leaders) practiced a transformational leadership style, influencing the educators’ perceptions of their school cultures. The authors further discovered that school culture significantly predicated the school image and mediated the link between the administrators’ leadership styles and the learning institution’s image. The findings from this study suggest that leadership manifested by existing principles of learning institutions establishes a positive impact on organizations by creating positive school culture leading to improving the organization’s image.
Nonetheless, the current learning environment is rapidly changing, given the growth of technological infrastructure, necessitating the need for transforming existing leadership capabilities into more dynamic ones. A dynamic leadership approach is essential in adopting an effective leadership style that can promote the team members’ job satisfaction and ultimately enhance organizational performance. In this context, Jameel and Ahmad (2020) explored the effect of leadership style (LS), including its components, transformational and transactional leadership styles, on the academic performance of university employees from 9 higher learning institutions across Iraq. The authors hypothesized that LS, transformational, and transactional leadership would significantly impact the Academic performance of followers, in this case, staff and, in particular, faculty members. The researchers found a significant effect of transformational leadership on job satisfaction. The research also demonstrated that job satisfaction significantly mediated the effects of the three variables: LS, transformational, and transactional leadership styles (Jameel & Ahmad, 2020). Even though the researchers noted the significant positive influence of adopting a transformational leadership approach, they needed to investigate a suitable model of mediating this leadership style to attain the needs of higher learning institutions, especially within a disruptive environment.
Systematic Process of Addressing the Challenge
The dynamic leadership model is generally an adaptive framework of leadership that provides leaders with a unique capability of sustainably addressing and conceptualizing unique challenges facing learning institutions (Nelson & Squires, 2017). One of the reasons identified in this paper concerning the need for attaining sustainability, productivity, and improved organizational performance involves the reliance on traditional forms of leadership instead of contemporary dynamic leadership strategies. According to Hunt and Fedynich (2019), most modern leadership theories involve dynamic leadership concepts that have replaced traditional forms of leadership, like the vertical leadership paradigm. However, adopting a dynamic leadership model within learning organizations remains challenging due to the disruptive nature of the current academic environments. In this context, leaders need to adopt a dynamic form of leadership that aligns with the current changing needs and priorities of their learning institutions. This position paper proposes the following recommendations to aid leaders in adopting a dynamic form of leadership within their learning environments.
One of the essential recommendations includes challenging the leadership process within learning institutions. According to research conducted by Yang et al. (2023), a dynamic leadership capability can be attained by adopting a dynamic leadership approach that emphasizes strategy diversification and integration. This approach will enable contemporary educational leaders to recognize challenges associated with the disruptive learning environment, identify opportunities, and leverage capabilities, including external resources, to promote organizational productivity. Kouzes and Posner (2019) contend that challenging a leadership process involves recognizing and exploiting resources and reconfiguring knowledge and technological changes required to transform novel dynamic leadership capabilities to attain positive organizational performance.
Another essential recommendation involves emphasizing innovation in planning and implementing novel education systems and processes. Innovation requires constituent learning and motivation of followers, an approach often emphasized by a transformational leadership approach (Abbas et al., 2012). In this context, Owusu-Agyeman (2021) conducted research in which he aimed to explore the factors that underpin the transactional leadership theory in influencing innovation necessary for meeting the constantly growing needs of learners and other stakeholders. The authors discovered that decision-making, communication utilization, communication flow, motivation, and engagement were significantly associated with promoting innovation among the participants, in this case, the administrative staff members of higher learning institutions. Therefore, a dynamic leadership model requires adopting an innovative leadership approach, such as the transformational leadership style coupled with improved communication with team members, including their motivation to achieve the learning organization’s needs.
Conclusion
This paper assumes that adopting suitable leadership styles in educational institutions currently faces a significant challenge in practicing effective leadership that can promote organizational productivity and achieve desired visions and objectives. This paper contends that most leaders are unable to ensure followers or team members can accomplish shared objectives effectively due to a lack of implementation of a modern dynamic leadership model. For instance, during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, leaders in learning institutions faced a significant leadership challenge of ensuring productivity among their followers due to emphasis on the use of the traditional single or vertical leadership approaches unrelated to educational goals, including local and national contexts.
This paper recommends how leaders can adopt a dynamic leadership approach to improve organizational performance within academic institutions. One of the recommendations includes challenging the leadership process by recognizing and exploiting resources and subsequent reconfiguration of knowledge and technological changes required to transform novel dynamic leadership capabilities to attain positive organizational performance. The other crucial broad recommendation includes emphasizing innovation in planning and implementing novel education systems and processes. This approach can be achieved by adopting an innovative leadership approach, such as the transformational leadership style mediated by improved communication and motivational environments to improve work satisfaction and organizational performance.
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