Applying Leadership Theories
Ana Torres
Grand Canyon University: EDU 575
April 22, 2014

The community demands of a school leader in today’s society are enormous. Effective school leaders must be able to communicate and influence people to follow their vision in order for the organization to function effectively. According to Green (2008) school leaders must possess certain qualities that help them develop a climate of trust and respect in which all stakeholders feel empowered to be comfortable in suggesting their ideas for the enhancement of the organizational goals. There are various leadership theories and styles that school leaders choose to use to inspire their communities and faculty to enforce the vision of their school. The majority of effective principals carefully choose to practice a balance of these theories and leadership styles to be more productive within their school and their community. In this essay the three theories that are discussed and used within my school are transformational, collective efficacy, and servant.
Transformational Theory
Transformational leadership theory focuses on encouraging faculty to participate in decision making and creating leaders within the organization (Pepper, 2002). This type of leadership encompasses the factors of being a skillful communicator and working collaboratively among all stakeholders. School leaders who practice this approach ensure that the faculty feels empowered to make decisions. This type of leadership is practiced and evident within my school building. My school consists about eight hundred students and eighty staff members. The principal in my school was a supervisor in the school for eight years. After her eighth year she became principal. She has been the principal in my school for nine years and has maintained the school at a well- developed standard for nine years. The principal in our school focuses the majority of her time at the beginning of the year in creating teams of highly effective teachers to use their expertise in various areas within the school building. For example, currently within our school some of the teams that she has created are teacher team leaders, school committee leaders, and instructional leaders. The principal works closely with each of these teams to collaborate and make school wide decisions. This year with the common core standards being implemented our school was given two new curriculums to use the students. The principal meets with the instructional team weekly to make decisions regarding the best way to make these new curriculums be more productive and successful for the students and teachers. When decisions are made the instructional team meets with teacher team leaders to help them provide the support for the teachers. One of the reasons these teams work successfully within the school is that the members of all teams also work together and communicate decisions and problem solve together. During these meetings teachers create curriculum maps, activities and teachers collaborate with specialists within the school so they can plan activities for students directly connected with the instruction given to the students in their classrooms. For instance, this year the fifth grade’s literacy units greatly focuses on slavery and the American Revolution Era one of our specialist is our drama teacher. She worked closely with the fifth grade teachers to make scripts, role play and performances around this unit. This allows instruction to be more meaningful to students and connect what they are learning inside of the classroom to the real life situations. The principal knows the importance of having all teachers participate in discussions, share their creativity, and their expertise. She treats every one with respect and this empowers the teachers to want to take ownership and leadership positions within the school.

Collective Efficacy Theory
According to Green (2008) the collective efficacy theory