HOW TO ENHANCE LEADERSHIP SKILLS IN SCHOOL

What is the leadership? According to John C. Maxwell, leadership can be defined

as the ability of someone to influence others to get the followers. Somehow, Webster’s

Dictionary defines leadership as “the person or ability to lead other people, but for most

people there’s a lot more to it than that. From the Islamic point of view, everybody is a

leader. It was stated by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in his narration, “…each of you is

a leader and each of you will be questioned about what led. A leader is a leader for his

people, and he will be held accountable to the governed”. The contemporary issues on

leadership skills in school, has been raised from many sides. There are many problems

regarding to leadership in school which are related to students especially school prefect.

As we know, the school prefect is a person who gets involved in helping teachers to

monitor disciplines of the pupils. Several major crisis and problems has been detected

as obstacles in this situation, such as lack of confidence, afraid of being bullied by other

pupils, lack of communication’s skills and integrity. From many related articles, there are

many suggestions and recommendations to overcome the problems. There are several

aspects that can be made as factors to contribute to the development of leadership

skills and teamwork whether through sport activities, gameplay and teambuilding

courses.

As mentioned above, there are many problems and factors which led to this

situation. The students who are appointed as a prefect by school are lack of integrity in

themselves. In Merriam – Webster Dictionary, integrity means the quality of being

honest and fair. It is strongly related to honesty, probity, rectitude, good character,

ethics, moral, righteousness, virtue, decency and so on. Because of this lack of attitude

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which is integrity, the other students would not respect them and decline to obey the

school rules. Additionally, teacher’s workload would be increased. It could affect the

learning process in school and quality of education. Other than that, they are also have

no skills of communication. They are not practicing good communication skills. To be

approached by students, teachers, parents or visitors, the prefect can participate in

presentation in front of the class which also can help build confident in themselves.

They have no knowledge of interpersonal skills and only get weak guidance from school

and teachers. Therefore, they do not know how to communicate well with other pupils

and treat them wisely. Basically, the communication problems consist of several

elements such as failure to listen, different cultures, attitude and ego, inadequate

knowledge and gender bias. Because of that, it could affect schools and students too.

The matters that relating to the integrity are deeply affect the school and students.

Student’s discipline will be decreased due to the ineffectiveness of the enforcement

from school in dealing with this problem. Also, learning sessions in class will be

interrupted due this circumstance. It will direct to negative impact on academic

performance and quality in school. The schools that are experiencing this problem will

be referred to and monitored by the Ministry of Education.

It will disrupt the harmony of the school and its occupants.

Students are likely related to various types of problems. Most of the problems

can be solved through learning of leadership skills. In fact, leadership skills and

teamwork is an integrated elements. It is obvious that generating leadership skills at

school would become more efficient. The teachers always ruling their tasks as guiders

and leaders to their students. Then, the students directly learn leadership skills from

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their teachers. Besides, by generating the leadership skills, it is automatically will

improve quality of disciplines in school. At the same time, discipline problems among

students could be reduced smoothly. In order to avoid students break the school’s rules

and regulation, the school management has to ensure that all students must learn the

leadership skills and teamwork. More than that, leadership skills are not just only thing

to reduce discipline problems among students. Even, it could be a mechanism to

encourage students to have high level of confidence when facing communities and

others. In Merriam - Webster’s Dictionary, confidence means “a f ee lin g o r be lief

t hat you can do somet hin g we ll o r succe ed at some th ing ” .We can see how

the students perform in front of thousands of audiences and give talk with confident.

Without the leadership skills, they also cannot give guidance to another students and

form a teamwork. In other way,

during teamwork, some students could learn about leadership skills and how to lead a

team and work as a team.

To overcome this problem, we have to come out with several solutions.

The first solution is to make student participate in sports activities. Sport is an outdoor

activity that involves physical activity classes. This sport activity is intimately linked to

the formation of student leadership. With student participation in sport, it can built self-

confident, responsible in doing some tasks and capable of making decisions. In

addition, they are also having the ability and skill to solve problems. Participation in

sports also can built integrity and self-awareness among students. School students

have the opportunity to participate in sports activities. Practice make perfect. In order to

make a good quality of leadership, continuous practicing and effort from school and

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teachers are essential. When other people need a new leadership, former student

leaders have been driving forward the pace of its own. They can use their experiences

in leadership at school and continue to be successful in their respective fields. With

sport activity, it can help student learn how to treat other competitors and teamwork and

also could help student to make best decision to win the match by thinking of many

strategies. Leadership can be described as a process of influence on the group in a

particular situation and the time that can stimulate the members to strive to be happy in

order to achieve common goals. Efficient and effective leadership can determine the

progress of an organization (Gribben, 1972). Leaders are individuals who are

competent, skilled, resilient and charismatic. Forming process and produce the best

leaders take a long time. Great leaders today were not born as a natural leader, but are

formed through the process of forming continuous leadership since his school days

(Azizah, 1991). Sports can build skills in communication and teamwork. Students who

are actively involved in sports activities will be able to hone the skills of effective

communication among them and foster teamwork well compared to students who are

not involved in sports. They tend to be passive. Playing football, basketball and

badminton also could provide students with the skills of leadership. Playing sports

provides participants with opportunities to develop skills in communication and

teambuilding. (Keith Zullig, 2015). Education is one of the sectors that contribute to

provide better future generations. Therefore the quality of life of people in a country can

be measured by the level of education of its people. The school system in Malaysia is

influenced by the Education Act 1961. The school education is divided into two main

parts, namely the curriculum and co-curriculum (Razak Report, 1956). National

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Education Philosophy has emphasized about balancing students intellectually,

spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Through the National Philosophy of Education,

the school curriculum designed to meet the needs of mental, physical and social

students with emphasis on teaching and learning formal involving curriculum and

subject content, sports activities as an extension of the above, such as students'

participation in sports and games and uniformed associations. All the activities are

available in the education system to encourage the development of physical, emotional,

spiritual and intellectual development among students and promote the formation of

leadership and character of leadership that can build the excellent personality of

students.

Another solution that may have come out to our mind is gameplay. Gameplay

has become a staple in life of most teenagers, and even adults. Play online game could

increase intelligent and brainpower. A University of Toronto study showed that playing

shooting or driving video games, even for a short time, sharpens visual skills and

improves the ability to search for a hidden target. In helping children to regulate their

emotions and cope with anger problem have come up with a game. The game involves

shooting at enemy spaceships while not shooting at friendly ones. In other words,

leadership style is the manner and approach of providing team direction, implementing

plans and motivating people (Nuangjumnong, T. , 2014). It teaches students to be a

good leader in their team and promote teamwork. The leader could realize that integrity

in leadership is the most important thing in this world. Furthermore, they could know

how to treat another member in team and give direction and support to win the game.

To work as a team, cooperative work is an important thing and most essential. The best

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way to encourage the spirit of teamwork, a leader should play his role as well as

possible. Another benefit in gameplay is to build up and increase thinking level how to

win the competition and provide team direction plan and decision making. To inculcate

good habits, in relation to health a mobile game that encourages eating more fruits and

vegetables with the goal of curbing childhood obesity. In the game, children must find

apples or other fruits for their animal characters. In terms of enhancing learning that

provide knowledge and improve their language proficiency. Student could gain

information about new vocabulary and be a fast learner. But remember that student

tend to be passive and neglect their studies when they are always playing game such

as isolated, could not share the same interest , experiences and techniques and the

possibility of being obesity. Anyway, it is hardly emphasize that leadership skills also

can be built by teamwork.

Finally, it is strongly suggested that teambuilding could be the one of the best

solution. Nowadays, teambuilding has become one of the activity which is always held

in schools and educational institutions .The main purpose of the course is to assess the

ability and endurance of students . Through this course, students have the competitive

spirit and high motivation in themselves. From the point of leadership, it embodies the

spirit of leadership qualities which are usually in the teambuilding course , someone will

be appointed to head the group . The task undertaken indirectly boost morale, integrity

and unity. They will learn how to be responsible and strong leader in their team. Many

students attend this teambuilding courses is to build up and light up their own integrity in

themselves. They meet a new friend and from there, exchange an ideas, opinions and

share same interest. They have high confident level and take an opportunity to

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communicate and practice with friends. Students can learn leadership skills and

teamwork by attending courses which are organized by school. Outdoor activities which

provides self-endurance and how to strategize in teamwork. Besides that, it is one way

to release stress with enjoy educational trips to various places. Creative students

always practicing their leadership skills and learning to be a better student . The

program teaches students to be responsible, gain experience in working with people at

different levels and to keep developing and diversifying their leadership skills.

In conclusion, it is important thing to generate leaderships skills and produce

teamwork in school. Students could know about decision making, through sport

activities. They also know how to treat other players and competitors with respect and

honor. Gameplay also provide students with teamwork skills and effective

communication skills. Without the skills, teamwork might miss their target and leader

could not know how to handle the situation. In addition to, students could gain more

self-endurance and be more discipline. There are many recommendations and

suggestions to solve this issue. Somehow, there must be cooperative work between

school administrator, teachers and students. School administrators could organize

campaigns and courses related to leadership skills and teamwork.

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REFERENCE

1. Extejt, M.M, & Smith, J.E (2009), Leadership development through sports team

participation. Journal of Leadership Education, 8 (2), 224 – 237

2. Nuangjumnong, T., (2014), The Effects of Gameplay on Leadership

Behaviors: An Empirical Study on Leadership Behaviors and Roles In Multiplayer

Online Battle Area Games. In Cyberworlds (CW), 2014, International Conference

on (pp. 300 – 377)

3. http://www.merriam-webster.com/