Organization Misdirection: A Strategic Research Project on Improving Leadership in Education

This strategic research project was designed to create a framework for improving inconsistent leadership styles in education. The project highlighted leaders' impact on an institution's teachers, faculty, and staff members. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis was conducted to assess internal and external factors, helping identify areas for leadership improvement at the institution. Factors impacting the institution include high employee turnover, workplace culture, communication skills, and leadership. The analysis revealed that inconsistent leadership styles were a primary concern, with leadership being identified as the highest internal weakness. To improve the concern of inconsistent leadership styles, a literature review was conducted to develop potential solutions to address inconsistent leadership styles. Out of the four solutions, the solution identified was to strengthen communication skills based on the advantages presented to help leaders enhance and improve their skills. The Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) tool was implemented to determine which strategy, understanding your audience or adapting to new communication styles, will be the most effective strategy to solve the problem. The most effective approach was understanding your audience; this allows leaders to showcase practical communication skills and build trust with teachers, faculty, and staff members. A five-step action plan was created to provide leaders with a framework for implementing new communication methods. Therefore, the peer review questions and oral presentation presented recommendations such as implementing professional development training and embedding the action plan into the institution’s school development plan. This will improve the inconsistency of education leaders' leadership styles.