Leadership needs to be nurtured in education

Leadership needs to be nurtured in education

A. Chaedar Alwasilah, Dean, Faculty of Language and Arts Education
Indonesian University of Education (UPI), Bandung,
chaedar@bdg.centrin.net.id

Shopping is an everyday business. But when some Indonesian
delegates were seen shopping in one of Rome's most expensive
arcades while attending a world summit on hunger, this was
another affair. The delegates are a well-selected few of the
political elite whose day-to-day activities are judged in terms
of national leadership.

Prominent scholar Nurcholis Madjid said the sight was evidence
enough to infer that Indonesian leaders are lazy, weak, and not
serious in running the nation. This country is administered by
people who indulge themselves with pleasures they do not deserve
yet. President Megawati Soekarnoputri and her predecessor
Abdurrahman Wahid are frequent travelers overseas despite
objections from the legislators and critics.

Elsewhere, legislators have shown a disappointing lack of
discipline through poor attendance records at sittings. This
suggests that the legislators lack the qualities required for
leadership.

The common belief in the lack of leadership skills of the
present leaders can be traced to their schooling between the
1950s up to 1970s.

Redesigning the curriculum has been felt necessary to produce
not only intellectuals but also future leaders. Curriculum
developers and teachers in particular should see every student as
a prospective "founding father."

Leadership consists of exercising power by organizing and
influencing people to have shared goals achieved and problems
solved. Good leaders compete for the minds and hearts of their
followers. They also have a strong sense of vision to inspire
their followers to move forward.

There have been misconceptions about leadership. Teachers may
identify a leader with their principal -- who often has minimum
contact with the students.

This suggests that most teachers do not see themselves as
leaders and, therefore, do not have any sense of responsibility
of demonstrating and teaching leadership to their students. It is
essential that teachers see themselves not as knowledge learning
facilitators but also as leadership learning facilitators.

Most people still view leadership in the same way they
conceive intelligence as an inherent and unitary capability, thus
leading to the erroneous conclusion that leaders are born. This
view is much less realistic and productive, downplaying the role
that can be played by the school.

Leadership in the classroom is to be defined as a function
that helps the group to meet the shared goal. Any person that
helps the group to function collectively is a leader of the
group.

To acquire leadership students need to be courageous, self-
assured, self-disciplined, knowledgeable, performance-oriented, a
communicator, a motivator, a problem solver, a team builder and
value-oriented.

Collectively these qualities are inherent in all school
subjects. However, these qualities have to be deliberately
materialized in activities inside and outside school.

Some students will be more skillful than others at clarifying
issues, identifying problems, and proposing solutions.
Deliberately designed, team work or group collaboration will
enhance a sense of leadership.

Functional leadership is not conferred, but is earned by
actions that directly moves a group in the direction of the
shared goals. The teacher's job is to facilitate situations where
this functional leadership emerges and to distribute opportunity
so that every student has relatively the same opportunity to
develop his or her own potentials of leadership.

In school, functional leadership coexists with the status of
leadership. The school system is based on a hierarchical pattern
of status and authority. The teacher carries out the principal's
directives and the principal obeys the superintendent's. All
these people assume leadership positions ex officio, or by virtue
of their status.

School teachers should create opportunities wherein students
learn and exercise functional leadership in the classroom and
beyond. Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading
others to work toward a shared goal, or of influencing the
actions of others. Therefore, ability to communicate, to argue,
and to convince others is essential for leadership.

The school system should set a good example of leadership in
terms of innovation and reform. Teachers are leaders of students,
and they should satisfy the qualities of leadership mentioned
above.