On the effectiveness of the combined managerial style of a modern general education school

The effectiveness of managing a general education school depends on the ability of the manager to use modern technologies in his activity skillfully. The article reflects the model of the management style of a modern school, which has both theoretical and concrete-practical content. The model is built on the selection of a number of effective management decisions in the management of a modern school, which is based on important management principles: systemacity, rationality, efficiency, human orientation, consistency, situationality, reflexivity. The use of such an approach will ensure the interaction of all subsystems of the school to increase the cognitive and motivational aspects of the educational process of knowers; will create conditions for achieving the necessary goal. Our studies have shown the dependence of the maturity indicator of the headmaster’s professional competence on the management style, the level of adequate self-assessment of his managerial qualities and abilities. During the research, we proposed a model for the combined style of modern general education school authorities that showed its effectiveness, developed the necessary conditions that contribute to improving professional competence of the head of a general education school.

Introduction

In recent years, there have been observed positive changes in the management system of education in the Republic of Kazakhstan related to the strengthening of managerial and academic independence of subjects in the educational process. In this regard, we have attempted to examine in more detail some features of management in a general education school to find effective ways to apply the necessary management style.

The research aims to identify the leadership style and effectiveness of the combined management style of a modern comprehensive school.

The object of research is the organization management system, the subject is management styles.

The hypothesis of research lies in the fact that the effectiveness of organization management will increase if the leader knows leadership styles and strives for self-improvement.

Objectives of the study are "management grids" aimed to identify the leadership style, personnel management style definition.

Methodology for the diagnosis of management style within the framework of professional activity and in cooperation (R. Blake, J. Mouton).

The traditional classification developed by A.A. Godunov and J. Khol provides for three main styles of management that take place in the actions of the leader: authoritarian, democratic, liberal. According to A.L. Zhuravlev, each of them assumes the corresponding model style of management: authoritarian — directive, democratic — collective, liberal — weak [1]. All the specified management styles affect the degree of individual freedom to a certain extent. There are various management models, among which the most popular are the "Leadership Grid" or "Management Mesh" by Sh.R. Blake, and "Leadership Grid" by J. Mouton "management grids" aimed at identifying the leadership style.

In these models, management differs in two parameters: The degree of the manager's desire to achieve his professional goal and the level of his attitude to people, as well as the desire to manage the team and the level of socio-psychological communication of the manager. From the perspective of this theory, the interests of members of the pedagogical team are determined by the level of management style of all school employees (including the school administration).

The value of each model can be determined by using the technique of Sh.R. Blake, which involves twenty gradations, each grid of which must coincide with a certain problem of the resulting styles. This technique defines 5 management styles:

Style 0.0. The manager of this type of style pays little attention to finding effective ways to achieve the goal and to create the necessary socio-psychological climate in the team. In fact, the manager is distracted from the main goal of management and is just an intermediary in the transfer of information to members of the team received from his chiefs.

Style 20.20. This is the perfect management style. Characteristic of this style is that the manager pays equal attention to all subjects involved in achieving the goal, as well as creates a comfortable psychological climate in the team. This style allows one to bring out the full potential of all members of the team and direct their efforts to achieve the goals set.

Style 20.0. This style is characteristic of autocratic managers, who often think only about work, solving creative and economic issues, do not care about the fate of the employee and ignore the peculiarities of the character, their abilities, and other personality qualities. Such a leader believes that only his order is enough and any task can be completed.

Style 0.20. Leaders of this style do not think about the ultimate goal. All their attention is aimed at establishing friendly and good relations with team members. In such a team, back-slapping terms are formed between management and employees, which often leads to the relaxation and irresponsibility of all members of the team and the loss of the necessary authority of the leader.

Style 10.10. Average level of interest in the factors under consideration.

Figure 1 show the management grid by J. Mouton.

Experimental

In the process of ascertaining experiment, we revealed that the managers of the pedagogical process of a general education institution have 5 levels of management style:

1. Maximum task direction-minimum per person (20.0);
2. Maximum for both factors (20.20);
3. Minimum per task and maximum per person (0.20);
4. Minimum for both factors (0.0);
5. Average level of interest in the factors under consideration (10.10).

Draw the obtained values of L and P on the corresponding axes of the graph (Figure 2), the points of intersection of these perpendiculars with each other on the graph.

The resulting performance indicator demonstrates that, with the use of a multi-level, combined management style, the manager pays great attention to all the interests of the team members, which indicates the highest level of their satisfaction. However, such an approach may be wrong for an inexperienced manager. In each case, an experienced manager should be able to determine correctly the management style necessary for this situation, to know the options for solving the problems and the team composition for implementation.

The management style has a great influence on the duties of team members and the effectiveness of employees of an educational institution. The style of activity is a set of interrelated character traits, ways, and personal features of carrying out certain actions that involve interaction with people and perform the functions of a dynamic stereotype.

As in any type of activity, there are three styles in management: authoritarian, democratic, and liberal (compromise).

Figure 3 illustrates the features of the independent style of management in pedagogical activities.

Results and Discussion

A.K. Markova in her works identifies four management styles inherent in the activities of the teachermanager of the subjects of the educational process [2].

1. Emotionally improvisational a teacher plans his work, focusing mainly on the learning process, but incorrectly evaluates the final results. In this case, interesting material is often selected in the lesson, and the rest is left to the student as an independent work. The main emphasis of the teacher is on good students. The activity of the teacher is full of a variety of forms and methods of organizing the work of students to achieve the goal, however, the teaching methods used by him are methodically weak and are mainly based on repetitions, development, control of the knowledge of students, which are often not taken seriously by them. The activity of the teacher is characterized by intuitiveness, emotionality and depends on the situations created during the course of the lesson. In the process of working with students, such a teacher is sociable and attentive to them.
2. Emotionally methodical. Focusing on the learning process and the result, the teacher plans correctly the educational process, gradually implements the educational material, using various methods related to summing up, working out tasks and discussing student knowledge assessments. In the activity of the teacher, simplicity appears, but, at the same time, there is a predominance of the property of intuitiveness over reflexion. The teacher seeks to stimulate students not by external motivation, but through the peculiarities of this subject. The teacher is sensitive to changing the situation in the lesson, although in his actions there is a predominance of personal anxiety, it, in turn, is compensated by sensitivity and mental agility in the process of communication with students.
3. Analytical-improvisational. The teacher is characterized by the orientation of the cognitive process on the result of teaching, correct planning, efficiency, intuitiveness, and reflexivity. However, this style is characterized by a low level of video presentation, the selection of the necessary teaching methods, and the rare use of collective discussion. The teacher's lessons do not allow students to express fully their thoughts in the course of answering the raised questions. This style distinguishes the teacher with excessive sensitivity, unobtrusiveness, the presence of traditional qualities connected with changes in the situation in the lesson. Such a teacher rarely overestimates his capabilities.
4. Analytical-methodological. A teacher of this style, based on the teaching results and planning correctly the educational process, shows conservativeness in the use of techniques and means of pedagogical activity. High methodological level is often combined with the selection of standard teaching methods and the rare use of collective discussions that require students to perform reproductive activities. As Baidenko V.I. notes, the teacher of this style is distinguished by reflexivity and is not particularly susceptible to changes in the lesson, or demonstration of observation in his activities [3].

One of the important aspects affecting the effectiveness of management is the independence of the style in pedagogical activities.

Psychological and pedagogical literature notes the demonstration of some features of an independent management style of pedagogical activity, which arise in the following cases:

• in temperament (time and speed of reaction, individual rhythm of work, emotional demonstration);
• in the nature of reaction to a particular pedagogical situation;
• in the choice of teaching methods;
• in the selection of ways of education;
• in the style of pedagogical communication;
• in the responsibility for the behavior and misbehavior of the child;
• in the manner of behavior;
• in the choice of encouragement and punishment;
• in the use of means of psychological and pedagogical influence on children.

Markova A.K. and Nikonova A.Ya. note three groups that characterize the independent management style of pedagogical activity, the main substantive characteristics of which are [2]:

• teacher's priority guidelines: on the learning process and on the learning result;
• correct or incorrect planning of the pedagogical process;
• efficiency in application of techniques and means of pedagogical activity, conservativeness;
• reflexivity and intuitiveness.

It should be noted that the independent managerial style in a teachers performance is distinguished by the ability of the teacher to take into account own individual inclinations in choosing a particular means of pedagogical influence and forms of behavior. Teachers with different personal qualities can constantly choose from many pedagogical problems only one, but with many ways to solve it [4].

It should be pointed out that the study of management problems is an interesting and paramount area in pedagogy and social psychology, which allows to learn the specifics of the subject joining the group and his influence on the group members within themselves, and other aspects of group activity. Considering the diverse activities of the manager, we can distinguish the following actions, which include the necessary specifications related to organizational, administrative, and socio-psychological activities.

The teacher-manager is one of the organizers of the cognitive process of the entire system of an educational institution, which is a complex hierarchical level of interaction between various subsystems. According to Vidt I.E., the competence of the manager determining expediency and productivity of the team includes correct selection of personnel, creation of comfortable psychological climate in the team, etc. [5].

We predicted the most effective implementation of the interaction as a model with different components. The organization of such models is necessary not only for management but also for methodologists, teachers, psychologists, social teachers, other specialists involved in the educational process at school.

Before describing the model that we have developed, we find it necessary to consider briefly the scientific and theoretical foundations of building any model.

Modeling is an abstract, theoretical-cognitive procedure carried out based on abstract-logical thinking. Model thinking is a creative and constructive mind, which is aimed at imporoving the state of the target object, to create a new work. It is also situational and realistic and obliges not only to demonstrate its capabilities and advantages, but also to demonstrate its immensely weak positions and restrictions.

The concept of a model is often found in the theory of cognition, in methodology and dialectical logic as an analogue of a real fragment of reality, emergence, conceptual and fundamental images of human culture, representative, deputy.

In social sciences, the concept of the model is interpreted by the definition of Vikhansky O.S. et al., as a symbolic image of structures, the interaction of types and models of activity in social processes [6]. He claims that modeling forms and model types can be different.

The management model we have proposed has a descriptive text position and meets the following main criteria:

• conceptuality based on a specific scientific concept (philosophical, social, psychological, and pedagogical);
• systemacity, that is, the main characteristics of the system in the model logic of the process, the relationship of all its sections, integrity;
• connection of personality development with the possibility of targeted teaching in diagnostics, which is one of the main aspects of preliminary design and planning of the pedagogical process, algorithmization, and step-by-step diagnostics;
• correction of results, introduction of changes by means and methods consistently oriented to a specific goal, creation of stable feedback;
• efficiency as a result and cost-effectiveness;
• reproducibility, which represents the possibility of applying (repeating, reproducing) samples;

In the process of formation of this management model, we relied on the following methodological approaches: systemic, optimization, communication-dialogical, personality-oriented.

The system approach creates conditions for considering the goal as a system, focuses on studying the holistic nature of the object, on reflecting information about various types of connections and their theoretical holistic scheme. The system is the basic concept of this approach. In general, it is interpreted as a set of elements in communication that give rise to real unity and integrity with each other.

• ased on the research principles of the scientists, such as V.G. Afanasyeva (1981), Yu.A. Konarzhevsky (1997), V.P. Kokhanovsky (1998), V.S. Lazarev (2002), P.I. Tretyakov (2001), E.G. Yudin (1978) [7], we took into account the following basic requirements for finding this interaction:
• ) reflection of dependency definition;
• ) analysis of peculiarities of structure and elements;
• ) study of the mechanism of interdependence and interaction of the system and the external environment;
• ) mastering the internal structure, hierarchy, inherent in this system;
• ) consideration of dynamics (movement) of the system, etc.

Description of an object from the position of system analysis means to identify its system objects, their connections and qualities. In turn, we consider the school as a system, successful activity of which depends on the activity of all participants in its subsystems. The subsystem is part of the system that preserves the main faces. It follows from this definition that each subsystem is itself a system. Therefore, controlled (chief,

administrative) and controlled (in this case, only pedagogical) subsystems are also a rather complex system, which is included in the structure of the school particularly as a subsystem. The basis of their successful achievements is the systematic action at the level of interaction among all elements.

Thus, the management model of educational workers of a general education school should meet the requirements for systems. In the last decade, the idea of a participative style of management has become widespread. Distinctive personality features in parallel management should be inherent to all employees of the pedagogical team and should be manifested in a high level of knowledge, the necessary abilities, skills, free expression of needs, desire for creativity, personal growth, interest in work, determination, desire for equality in communication.

The generalized task should assume the complexity of solution, require theoretical analysis and high professional [8] execution, and the work should be implemented to the extent of its limits.

It should be noted, however, that a number of factors may impede successful implementation of the required management style:

• the manager's unwillingness to share his powers with subordinates;
• low professional level of subordinates, their uncertainty, inability to act independently;
• lack of organizational actions to be included in the participation process;
• insufficient time to complete the job;
• specification of tasks requiring the application of rigid management methods.

The fact that the management style should always be aimed at ensuring the effective interaction of the subjects of the pedagogical process in successfully achieving their goals requires that the head of the educational institution must have the necessary managerial competencies of the manager. According to Kulamikhina I.V., a highly-qualified manager should form himself both as a teacher and a psychologist [9].

To form the qualitative facets of a psychologist, the manager needs to know the psychological and pedagogical characteristics of the personality, which can help him to distinguish people, give an adequate assessment of their condition, determine the mood, anticipate their actions, know the abilities of employees, determine their capabilities to fulfill their tasks, evaluate correctly the results of activities. He must be able to determine correctly the necessary type of communication in relation to each employee, based on his individual characteristics, mental state, at the same time respecting ethical standards related to the need to respect not only himself, but also others.

The manager must be a psychotechnologist, considering not only his professional abilities, but also individual and mental characteristics as the object of his activity. His personal qualities are reflected in the management relationship system, so the manager must be able to influence the employee's personality by actions aimed at changing his state, motive, goal, that is, using a sequence of practical actions based on a systematic analysis of the relationship.

In the end, all the listed actions towards the staff lead to a steady effective activity of the managerteachers, all modern managers who manage the staff of the institution, whether it is a small company, a large corporation or a school, strive for this.

The most important indicator of the rationality of any model is its compliance with the features of activity imported through this system, therefore, objective features and their criteria, which make it possible to determine the operability of the management model itself, assessing the effectiveness of teachers have become an important choice for us.

As the basis of the reference models, the professional competence of the head of the secondary school was approved, which, according to I.A. Mazayeva, is defined as a set of knowledge, abilities, professionally important aspects that ensure the manager’s optimal and effective performance of his professional activity [10].

Management functions are information-analytical, purposeful-consistent, planning-prognostic, organizational-executive, control-diagnostic, regulatory-corrective, ultimately reduced to modeling the professional activities of the head of a general education school.

Manager's assessment and understanding of his/her competencies concerning his/her activities is defined as the content of professional competence [11], which is supplemented by the nature of selfassessment of the motives and professional needs of the activity. In our opinion, the features of the development of professional competence are:

• self-assessment of professional requirements and quality;
• formation of a professional target concept;
• ability to produce, implement, analyse, and correct the action program.

The managerial competence of the head of the school is connected with the need to ensure the interaction of all subsystems and all subjects of the system in achieving educational goals.

The goal of the entire system of internal school management sets a new step in a focused and consistent approach, information support, pedagogical analysis, planning, organization, monitoring, and supervision. Creative, phased management of the main activities in the school requires the use of scientifically and methodically verified management technology of all actions of the subjects of the pedagogical process. Awareness of the adoption of new educational goals, awareness of specific expected results is the main condition that ensures motivation of the pedagogical team.

Analysis of the state of the team, understanding the motives of the activity, stimulating their career growth, creating conditions for creativity and achieving a specific goal, seasonal, personnel, material and technical, methodological and program, financial, psychological, legal and collective agreements, are the first step in the management of a modern general education school. Here, each management function is considered an algorithmic step of the corresponding action in the management of a general education school.

According to J. Raven, the management of a general education school as a system object requires a special, focused approach in the development of forecasts and management decisions, namely development programs, complex-target projects, annual plans of educational institutions, as well as plans of all subsystems and subjects of the school [12]. A complex hierarchical planning structure and its expediency give the objects of the management system the ability to set the necessary goals for achieving the overall goal.

Evaluation of management effectiveness can be carried out on psychological and non-psychological features. In his works, Saigushev N.Ya. refers to psychological features: satisfaction with membership in this labor collective and the work of its team, the presence of an atmosphere of interest among employees, the presence of the authority of the head and adequate objective self-esteem of employees [13]. Non- psychological features include the effectiveness of the team according to the main parameters of work performed by employees.

Nevertheless, as a leader, the manager who heads the employees of a particular institution, must form their common interest, productive communication, teach employees the ability to use their time effectively, overcome obstacles that arise in the way of achieving the goal.

Conclusions

Based on the theoretical and empirical analysis of the research results on the problem of managing the school system in general and various styles and models of managing the pedagogical team in particular, we identified 4 groups of criteria that determine the successful level of managing the pedagogical team of a general education school:

• the first group is connected with the full implementation of management functions;
• the second group is connected with the optimal management structure, close cooperation of the administration with the team;
• the third group is connected with the ability to manage innovative changes;
• the fourth group is connected with the creation of the necessary conditions in the school that ensure a positive emotional and psychological climate (respect, democratic style of management and communication, creation of conditions for increasing the interest of the pedagogical staff of the school in productive and creative work, self-improvement and self-realization of pedagogical workers, effective use of working time by all participants of activities, etc.).

Described above criteria are revealed by the following indicators:

• high level of teaching staff development;
• general emotional state;
• interest of the pedagogical staff of the school in productive, creative success;
• development of professional skills;
• participation in innovative, pilot and experimental activities;
• adequacy of self-assessment of professional and pedagogical activities;
• professional competence (the level of psychological and pedagogical readiness, methodological literacy, general and professional culture).

The results of our ascertaining experiment confirmed the effectiveness of the management model developed by us, at the heart of which the combined style of management is used as much as possible, and which allows us to include each of them actively, purposefully, considering the existing abilities and the availability of readiness of the subjects of the pedagogical process in the work on reaching the desired goal.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the model of the combined style of management of the pedagogical team in the general education school, which reflects its qualitative and quantitative characteristics, was based on compliance with all management requirements of pedagogical management, which are the central core of this model and require the definition of the main channel, strategy and style of management activities.

References

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