Leadership and Strategy Development for Goal Attainment in the 21st Century Educational Institutions

ABSTRACT Effective leadership motivates individuals to accomplish goals or makes positive changes in their lives and work empowerment. It causes individuals to meet challenges, take responsibility and become involved in what they are doing. It involves doing careful planning, organizing, controlling and staffing the organizational structure with people who are as competent as possible. Leadership has been considered one of the most important elements affecting organizational performance. This is so because goals and objectives of the organization are accomplished. It has also been the focus of attention of behavioural scientists because the leader has a significant effect on the behaviour, attitudes and performance of employees. So leadership has been studied and researched for a number of years resulting in numerous theories and models. However, all these leadership functions accomplish little if the leaders do not know how to lead people and to understand the human factors in their operations in such a way as to produce results. The paper therefore examined bases and characteristics of a leader, Leadership theories and management techniques. It was then recommended that the school administrator should orchestrate the various leadership styles, strategy development, and school vision, focuses on team building and creates a collective school vision that is clear, compelling and focuses on the needs of all the stakeholders.