Role ’ Prime Focus August Volume 4 Number 4 pages 28-29

Thirty years ago the educational administration writer, Andrew Halpin, articulated an age-old administrative dilemma: "...far too many principals allow their responsibilities to become obscured by trivia, with the result that they abdicate their leadership role and allow themselves to degenerate into mere functionaries. Routine and perfunctory activities have a specious attractiveness because they often allay anxieties that are inherent in the principal's leadership role. But we must avoid the mistake of confusing sheer routine activity with the productivity and creativity required for effective leadership." Andrew W. Haplin How Leaders Behave(1967) Today the same dilemma remains. In order to survive, many school administrators retreat to the office and immerse themselves in the day to day running of the school. They a focus on maintenance, and often 'fire fighting ' operations in order to keep their head above water. Issues of impact and future direction are often swamped by administrative demands such as developing school charters, understanding ‘Cases’ and global budgets, and implementing system initiatives. But, in order to dare to make a difference, administrators need to look beyond the mundane: to set their sights; to focus on leadership; and avoid surrendering to management. The fact is most of our schools are ‘over-managed ’ and ‘under-led.’ Therefore, defining and clarifying your role as a leader and manager is one of the most important challenges for school administrators. The Difference between Leadership and Management The debate about the difference between leadership and management has preoccupied theorists and writers on organisations for many years: some have argued that leadership and management are two sides of the same coin; others have proposed that the two are separate but complementary concepts; yet another school of thought has reasoned that leadership is merely an aspect of management. Whatever the difference it is indisputable that there needs to be a balance between management and leadership. The problem is that, too often, the balance seems to be weighted towards management at the expense of leadership