Are Principals Managers or Leaders or Both?
摘要
This chapter clarifies to comprehend better the nature of the duties and obligations of a manager and leader. Based on the roles and responsibilities from empirical evidence, the main purpose of this chapter is to discover and evaluate whether the role of a principal is a manager or a leader, or both. The chapter explored the definitions of management and leadership, roles, and responsibilities of a principal as a manager and leader and then compared, contrasted, and classified according to their similarities, differences, strengths, and limitations. Therefore, more clarification is provided to understand the terms management and leadership. A detailed description of the roles and responsibilities of the heads of educational organizations at different levels is depicted to justify whether they are involved with more managerial or leadership jobs. A few examples are given to demonstrate how a good manager can fail to be a good leader, and vice versa. It is also described that there are good managers who are successful leaders, and vice versa. Assessing the roles, responsibilities, and scope of functions, the chapter concludes that heads of educational organizations perform more managerial functions than leadership activities. Thus, it is more justified to address them as ‘Principal Manager’ rather than limiting them only to leading functions.