Comunication of school leader

In the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century more and more attention has been paid to the notion of leadership competence. Leadership refers to a specific type of human activity, during which a group of people starts working effectively and resultatively. This is achieved by the intensive exchange of information, mutual understanding, and constant cooperation of a leader with his/her team. However, it is still unclear what the communicative competence of a school leader should look like to make one‘s leadership as productive and resultatative as possible. Therefore, the current reasearch aims at analysing the peculiarities of the school leader‘s communicative competence. According to the scientific sources, communicative competence of a school leader is of primary importance. Moreover, the communicative competence helps to create a student-friendly atmosphere. As a result, students will feel equal members of a school community, what eventually will make a positive impact to their study results, as well as their self-esteem and motivation. Nevertheless, the research findings show that the matter-of-fact and businesslike communication predominates at school. According to the school teachers and students, school leaders do not pay enough attention to their personal needs. The research respondents claim that a closer contact with a school leader would not only improve their relationship, but also make teachers distribute home assignments more effectively to their students. Besides, the comminicative distance is expressed via the school leaders‘ behaviour during interview. Shool leaders tend not to waste their time and go straight to the heart of the matter. Moreover, the research findings reveal that the school leaders‘ speech frequently does not correspond to the listeners‘ needs, which eventually results in the fully undisclosed conversational topic. In addition, the school leaders‘ speeches often lack expression, stylistic and linguistic means, etc. The reasons for such lack of expression are the following: insufficient attention to speech organization, argumentation, content, etc. Besides, the noice from the audience sometimes causes difficulties. Furthermore, the research showed different tendencies in the process of decision-making. Usually, school leaders ask other members of the staff for advice. In addition to the democratic decision-making, there are instances of authoritative leadership. By means of authoritative leadership, school leaders make their own decisions without consulting other staff members, only informing about them afterwards. Furthermore, school leaders tend either to suppress different conflict situations, or even not to pay any attention to them. However, there are cases when school leaders particpate in conflict–solving situations, but only after having been asked about that. Finally, the research findings reveal that the most valuable and distinguished characteristics of the school leader‘s communicative competence are the following: tolerance, obejectivity, patience, pleasant tone, understanding, democratic views, abilty to cope with difficulties, etc.Švietimo akademijaVytauto Didžiojo universiteta