“Leaders are charismatic and often are admired and held in high esteem, managers directs resources to complete pre determined goals or projects”

  Many such interesting thoughts were echoed during the recently organised 3 day leadership workshop (4-6 December) under UKIERI. The aim was to bring together diverse thoughts & perspectives on leadership and its effectiveness, through sharing of ideas and best practises from the leaders of today.

The workshop began with an inaugural forum at the British Council titled “Translating Vision to Reality: Role of Effective Leadership” and nearly 230 people representing educationists, government, industry, NGOs, multilateral/ bilateral agencies participated. It touched upon various issues revolving around leadership and had a diverse panel including:

• Amitava Bhattacharya - CEO, Banglanatak.com (Chevening Gurukul Scholar) who shared his views on “How innovative/progressive thinking is a key to change “
• Abha Singh -Director, Indian Postal Services (Chevening Gurukul Scholar & Lead India Finalist) who shared her views on “What inspires and aspires and concept of Open Leadership”
• P. R. Ramanujam - Director, Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE), IGNOU who spoke on “Quality leadership vs management”
• Meera Balachandran -Director, Education Quality Foundation of India who shared her thoughts on “Effective leadership and the school dimension”
• Ann Burgess -Senior Policy Advisor, British Council who shared her views on “Policy and its impact on Leadership”
• Radhika - who shared the student perspective on “Role Model v/s Leaders”

As the evening progressed, it was evident that the panel evoked motivating & challenging thoughts from the participants as one of the participants stated - “I expected an open discussion & a lot of bullets on being an effective leader myself. I gathered many pearls”.

Day 2 and 3 of the event were organised away from the rush of the bustling city in Surajkund. The residential workshop brought together 26 nominated principals & head teachers from UKIERI school clusters. A wide variety of schools was represented including Jawahar Navodaya Vidhayalas, private funded schools and Delhi Government schools. The workshop covered a broad range of topics including Quality Control & Raising standards, Envisioning/Communicating a vision, Management vs. Leadership, Sustainable Leadership & Succession Planning, Envisioning/Communicating a Vision, Leadership styles, Distributed leadership etc.

The two day workshop was jointly facilitated by Ms. Ann Burgess, Senior Advisor, British Council, London and Mrs. Meera Balachandran, Director, Education Quality Foundation of India.

“The workshop has given me new ideas and innovations in the context of school & ways to implement them”

Bijaya Naik, Principal

  “I now have a bigger vision for my organisation & more clarity on my role as a leader for my students and adopting better methods”

Neena Singh, School Teacher

  The feedback received from the participants stated that most of them strongly felt that the event has been rewarding. They are also keen to translate some of the recommendations into actions in the days to come.