Instructional and Moral Leadership (Short Essay)

by May Anne Joy D. Romanes

majromanes57@gmail.com

       One of the most important characteristics of good leaders is having strong moral authority (Covey, 2011).  Moral authority means living by principles to garner the respect and esteem of others (Covey, 2011).  It causes a leader to embody the values crucial for the organization (e.g. honesty, fairness).  It is more of setting standards of conduct in the organization through the yardstick of morality of its leader.  Also, it is the foundation for sustainability, because lack of it can contribute to problems that will eventually bring the organization and its people down.

          If morality can be strengthened in the organization through its leader, would it be true that immoral leaders can weaken it?  In certain instances, this can be true.  Although there are differences on how morality has been instilled to us since we were young, influence of those we regularly work with, especially those who are above us in terms of position, is very much possible.  This alone shows that leaders need to raise their calibers of morality—that no matter what, they will still stand for what is right. 

          The education sector has been regarded as more moral and trusted sector than other sectors in our society.  For instance, a lot of programs, projects, and activities of other sectors have been channeled through the Department of Education.  The government elections (COMELEC), vaccination program (DOH), 4Ps (DSWD), tree planting (DENR), feeding program (DOH), and census (NSO), are few of the delegated tasks from other government departments to teachers.  No other profession was given this much trust. This gives more eminence to the need of ensuring that the people in the education field should live to what is expected of them—that is to be worthy of the trust and respect that people give them. 

          Having high moral standards in the education sector is not enough, our country needs to survive, and so it is critical that there must be enough supply of citizens, who are not only morally upright, but also intellectually and skillfully competent. That is to say that moral leadership is not enough, they must also have strong instructional leadership.  It is the responsibility of the educational leaders to ensure that the students in their school receive the highest quality of instruction everyday (Center for Educational Leadership, 2015).  Hence, it requires leaders to lead to improve the quality of teaching and student learning (Center for Educational Leadership, 2015).

          They say that there are some things that money can’t buy, like morals and intelligence (Indulgy, 2013).  These priceless things are those which matters most in education.  These things become our heritage as it is passed onto the future generations.  This is one great contribution that education leaders, like us, can at least do for our nation.

References:

Center for Educational Leadership. (2015). 4 dimensions of instructional leadership. Retrieved from http://info.k-12leadership.org/4-dimensions-of-instructional-leadership

Covey, S. (2011). Morning in America. Retrieved from https://inside.ucumberlands.edu/ academics/history/downloads/MorningInAmericaVol2i3.pdf

Indulgy. (2013). Powerplug! Motivational quotes. Retrieved from https://indulgy.com/post/ ftHPeqiOB3/there-are-some-things-that-money-just-cannot-bu