Empowering teachers as leaders by Valentina

For many years, the whole power of schools has been only reserved to the principals, who at the same time have been seen as authoritarian people that tell everyone how to do their jobs. In this analysis, I am going to write about what is empowering, the importance that this has for teachers, some control tactics used by principals and how teachers should see their profession.
Empowerment has been described by many authors as shared decision making that includes building up people´s self esteem, giving power to employees, helping workers to take ownership, treating teachers as professionals, among other definitions.
Instead of working for the principal (as it is seen every day), teachers should work with the principal as a team, not as subordinates or slaves. This does not mean that teachers should be breaking rules and challenge the authority, on the contrary, they should respect their superiors, but they should be taken into consideration, be asked on important matters and given the opportunity to take decisions in their educational environments.
For principal it is important to have everyone in control, so they use so many techniques such as, punishments, manipulation, favoritism, threats of sanctions, harassment, protective strategies (acquiescence, ingratiation, inconsistency) and many more.
In conclusion, it is essential that all teachers believe that they are professionals and that principals give them the opportunity to be of help in order to change this current situation in which teachers feel so frustrated in their jobs.