Islamic Crash Course as a Leadership Strategy of School Principals in Strengthening School Organizational Culture

Introduction

Studies on leadership that vary in contexts and cultures concluded that the values of honesty, integrity, truth, and emotional and personal depth in all organizational personnel are the main factors in the success of leadership practice in an organization (Brown & Militello, 2016; Walker & Hallinger, 2015; Walker & Qian, 2015). The official forms of integrity and truth values vary in contexts and cultures given by all organizational resources and are the facts that need to be striven for (Helga, 2014; Juharyanto, 2012). The authentication of such values empowers spiritual motivation in an organization and significantly affects the independence of the human resources who work for such organization, which will strengthen the organizational achievement mutually and correctly (Sariakin & Anwar, 2010; Zhu & Engels, 2013).

Furthermore, Sariakin and Anwar (2010) stated that, basically, leadership starts from the integrity of intellect, feelings, thoughts, and spirits of the individuals who lead and is subsequently channeled to other resources of the organization through meaningful interactions. Such meaningful interactions are “strong stimuli” to the realization of leadership awareness of the organizational resources in providing a total contribution heading to effective leadership in any place and era.

The leaders are expected to realize that they don’t only work together but are also dynamic human resources with a similar future goal, and they need to develop opportunities for reaching the goals of the organization as their learning community (Bhindi & Duignan, 1997; Juharyanto, 2012, 2014). Thus, effective leadership only happens when ethics and leadership values become the main principles of a leader in applying their leadership (Fairholm & Gronau, 2015; Kalman & Arslan, 2016; Murphy, 2015).

The success of effective leadership, basically, is definitely determined by the acceptance of leadership values by the school team; the team believes in the truth and struggles to create a high-quality school (Eliyana & Ratmawati, 2013; Lumby, 2012). The principal leadership concerns not only about which values are received, believed in, mastered, and become the principal’s commitment but also that the truth should be tightly maintained by all school teams. Therefore, that effective leadership does not merely attach to the principal as the central figure in the educational institution (Sun, 2012; Your & Culture, 2015). Next, external components such as student guardian and society also contribute to the success of the school comprehensively. The indicator of the success of effective leadership appears in the whole interpretation of school programs conducted effectively and efficiently through high support from all teams.

The leadership values finally inspire the development of a strong school culture that becomes the powerful foundation for the school system (Liljenberg, 2014). When leadership is successfully integrated into the school culture and strengthens the school system, the school will be successful without any failure, especially the failure of certain succession (the change of principal). Practically, this case happens due to the strength of the school system starting from good leadership values that grow up the quality of school programs in many aspects (Fishman, 2009).

In the context of leadership, the difference in educational management in the world that is generally managed by the government and people is the implementation of leadership values. Interestingly, Indonesia as one of the countries with the highest number of citizens in the world has an educational system management which is different from other countries, that is, educational management by government and people, namely, Islamic-based educational system (madrasah). Based on the current data, Indonesia has 83,346 Islamic-based schools, with the number of students being 12,470,599 at Islamic early childhood education or Raudhatul Athfal (RA) (Source: General Directorate of Islamic Education of the Ministry of Religion of RI of 2017). The high number of students in those Islamic schools has the opportunity and challenge to improve the quality of education in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the Islamic school, especially “private Islamic School,” tends to be lacking in terms of leadership, organizational culture, and the educational system. Therefore, the study of the right strategy development in strengthening the leadership is one of the essential aspects offered in this research. Theoretically, this case is crucial because strengthening the leadership value of the principal greatly influences the educational system and high-quality teaching (Choiri & Fitriani, 2011; Musyaddad, 2013; Roesminingsih, 2014).

Strengthening the principal’s leadership is essential because it determines the good organizational culture of a school. Some current research shows that the principal’s leadership significantly contributes to the quality of school culture and achievement (Bendikson, 2012; Mitchell & Sackney, 2016; Murphy & Torre, 2015). Theoretically, there are some determining factors of organizational culture; one is the quality of school principal as the symbol of the organization (Bush & Middlewood, 2005). In the context of Islamic-based education, the principal has the authority not only structurally but also culturally. Structurally, the principal is hired through the formal procedure that is not always socially recognized by the school team. On the contrary, as a cultural leader, a principal is considered as a competent person due to his or her leadership symbol power that is believed to facilitate the strengthening of the ideas of the school system as an organization (Ng, 2013). In another side, from the various phenomena in some Islamic schools, it can be known that the weak organizational culture of the school is caused by the weak leadership of the principal as the cultural symbol. In other words, the quality of the school organizational culture is greatly determined by the quality of the principal who has high leadership and can apply the leadership values in the school organization (Boyatzis & McKee, 2010; Juharyanto, 2017). Generally, another problem that frequently occurs in the Islamic school leadership is the low value of leadership as a result of certain figures dominating so that the regeneration of the principal weakens (Mcculla & Degenhardt, 2016). Interestingly, the low value of leadership of the Islamic school principal can be practically enhanced through the process of synergy with Islamic boarding school (Choiri & Fitriani, 2011; Kriger & Seng, 2005). One of the strategies that can be executed is Islamic crash course in the Islamic boarding school. Theoretically, this strategy can improve the quality of leadership in Islamic schools. Research reports related to the enhancement of the quality of Islamic school leadership and culture through the strategy of Islamic crash course have not been found, and thus, it is important to conduct this study. Hence, in this article, we study the strategy to improve the quality, model, leadership value, and relationship with Islamic school organization.

Literature Review

The main background of this research was a relatively similar phenomenon that happened in the location where this study was conducted, namely, weak leadership quality of school principals in managing their institutional organizations. Such phenomenon was caused by, among others, an unplanned succession of leadership resulting from the sudden demise of the previous school principal. Therefore, the status or existence of the new school principal could not be immediately accepted because he was previously a teacher, so he was regarded as having the same ability level as other teachers and as not ready for his new position. Such conditions create a nonconducive school atmosphere and tend to decrease the community trust and school performance. Effective leadership is a key requirement for the creation of a conducive school culture in strengthening the school system that tends to fade and be more difficult to control. School is on the verge of collapse (Ali & Ngang, 2011; Eric, Steven, & Boberg, 2016).

The definition of an effective leadership practice strongly depends on several things, such as, among others, organization reinforcement, an involvement of all organizational elements, awards, an ability to identify the organizational characteristics and the organizational environment, an ability to be a role model, and an ability to formulate, spread, and initiate the organizational visions (Chan, 2013). Eventually, the concept of leadership should be given meaning in a wider, more meaningful and relevant context with the real life as well as the trends. In the context of community trend, leadership is more likely to be directed to the strategies taken by an organization leader in his or her efforts of maximizing the values of culture, context, uniqueness, and individual tendency in an organization, as well as his or her efforts in identifying, analyzing, adapting, and innovating all interventions of global trends innovatively and creatively, which is based on the adopted values. Therefore, it could result in perfect agreement on how an organization could naturally yet dynamically flow in a meaningful way and motivate every entity in the organization most effectively and efficiently. An organization strongly depends on strong leadership in undergoing everyday life with unpredictable changes. Many research works found out that numerous strong organizations failed due to weak organizational leadership (Cross, Ernst, & Pasmore, 2013).

Dynamically, a strong organization is a process of a compatible and systematic cooperation among people in a formal and hierarchical bond and acts in accordance with the agreed provisions to achieve the goals that are effectively and efficiently stipulated (Bertocci, 2009; Lumby, 2012; Zhu & Engels, 2013). As a culture, an organization is a system of meanings that is mutually followed by its members as a relatively new phenomenon (Robbins, 1989). Culture is an invisible strength behind the apparent things. It is a social energy that guides people’s behaviors (Peterson, 2013; Singh, 2014). Therefore, it is an individual “character” that unites, provides meanings, directions, and mobilization, and affects the thoughts, feelings, and actions of organizational members (Duchon & Plowman, 2005; Sampson, Ifenthaler, Spector, & Isaias, 2014; Storey, 2011) as it is a “spirit and core.” Without cultures, an organization will tend to be incomplete and unable to survive (Fry & Cohen, 2009; Mitchell & Sackney, 2016). Culture also acts as an instrument that functions as an adaptive and regulative mechanism (Georgiades, 2015; Parameshwar, 2005).

Culture has a clear implication for improvement of performance quality of the school community (Sergiovanni & Green, 2015). Culture causes positive impacts not only on the students but also on the staff of such institutions (Jerald, 2006). Culture is like a spirit for life (Hinde, 2004) that affects one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, even every aspect of the school (Recepoglu, 2013). Still in this context, Kaplan and Owings (2013) also pointed out that “if the culture changes everything changes.” The research findings of Peters and Waterman (2004) also concluded that any organizational change and effect highly depend on the culture of the organization.

According to Glover et al., the test score is not the primary indicator of a school’s success, but it is the ability to provide happiness, learning challenges, and satisfaction for its students (Glover & Law, 2002). Such model focuses on the concept of school culture, in which school effectiveness depends more on the creation of a “community of learners” at schools. Highly centralistic management of education (Higham & Earley, 2013; Jeong, Lee, & Cho, 2017) requires a school to be “subjected to the official values permitted” by the current authority. As a consequence, the school will be passive and unable to provide sufficient services.

The results of studies and research on school principals show that a school principal is a key person (Schildkamp, Lai, & Earl, 2011) who should act as the center of excellence to improve the school resources (Boylan, 2016). The findings of some research on leadership have proven that a school principal leadership could enhance the performance of the teacher (Vermeulen, Van Acker, Kreijns, & van Buuren, 2015) and result in a high learning climate (Silins, Mulford, & Zarins, 2002). The research conducted by Arifin (2010) found out that an effective leadership of a school principal could be a contributing factor to school achievements. In his subsequent research, Arifin (2012) discovered that educational leadership is a successful centralized educational innovation in young learners’ institutions.

Dineen and Sutermeister presented the results of their study by stating that there are some determining factors in workforce productivity (including teacher productivity in educational institutions), including, among the other 33 factors, leadership climate, leadership type, and a leader (Arifin, 2010). Hence, school principal becomes the main determinant of the promotion of educational and teaching qualities of a school (Arifin, 2012; Lee, 2015; Orphanos & Orr, 2013). As a professional official in school organization, a school principal is responsible for managing and cooperating with all school resources in achieving the educational goals and in knowing all the school’s needs in accordance with particular requirements, criteria, and spirits of the Regulations of Ministry of National Education No. 13, Year 2007. The Indonesian government sets out five required competencies of a school principal, namely, personal, managerial, entrepreneurship, supervisory, and social competencies (Kementerian Pendidikan Nasional, 2007). Such competencies are often abused in the ambiguity of political implementation, which is based on vested interest that frequently hinders the professional role of the school principal in improving national teacher and educational qualities (Ololube, 2007) as the existence of a school goes hand in hand with political terminology (Cherian & Daniel, 2008).

Every leader should realize that the values of his or her strategy should be able to be well defined, especially in terms of ambiguous politics deeply interfering with the school organization. The formulation of a leadership strategy is directed to the way of implementing all organizational agreements toward changes by maximizing all of the organizational potentials. Without a proper leadership strategy and the best and bold behaviors and actions, the human resources in an organization will never be aware of their potentials in supporting the exploration and implementation of the organizational values. In such contexts, a leadership strategy is a way of changing a leader’s perspective with the aim to create and develop relevant leadership abilities in an organization following the demand of unpredictable changes (Cross et al., 2013). The school principal is a core figure and has a central role in an educational institution because he or she has to be directly involved in determining the school educational program (Arifin, 2012). A school principal should develop good relationships with teachers and staff, and he or she should be able to move every person to create deep self-awareness for reaching the educational goals mutually. A school principal should have the essence of leadership, that is, to be able to perform his or her tasks. In applying his or her leadership strategy, a school principal should consider several things, such as knowing the quantity and quality of the human resources in the organization, having the competence to create effective and efficient organizational cultures, applying collective leadership, and being actively involved in the initiated and implemented leadership culture (Cross et al., 2013).

Specifically, there are nine effective leadership strategies that could be applied in organizations: (a) expand involvement and influence outcome, (b) explore possibilities outcome, (c) select and align the leadership team outcome, (d) explain the business case for change outcome: compelling case for change, (e) envision the future outcome: inspiring vision, (f) experiment and ensure alignment outcome: collaborative effort and infrastructure, (g) enable and encourage outcome: new skills and commitment, (h) execute and endorse outcome: accountability and early results, and (i) embed and extend outcome: reach and sustainable results (Zigarmi & Hoekstra, 2008).

A success of an institution or organization depends not only on the role of its leader but also on other contributing factors, such as advisors, patrons, auxiliary staff and teachers, and even an external support that is capable of distributing leadership values to some internal sources of the organization. Therefore, the reinforcement of school organizational culture should be done through the enforcement of school leadership by utilizing various strategies, namely, direct and indirect strategies, which are referred to by some experts as direct and indirect effects of the strategies (Eric et al., 2016; Kaparou & Bush, 2016; Orphanos & Orr, 2013). Direct leadership strategy is a leadership strategy that is implemented directly by the leader himself or herself and has a direct impact on the development of the school organization. Meanwhile, the indirect leadership strategy is a leadership strategy implemented by a school principal by using the service of third resources on the internal and all involved resources, and it has a direct effect on both direct and indirect school organizational development. The two leadership strategies have been a routine and main agendas in several elementary schools/madrasah Ibtidaiyah/Islamic elementary schools in East Java.

Research Method

This research aimed to reveal and describe the “Islamic crash course” strategy in enforcing leadership values taken as an effort to develop cultures of educational organizations, which was implemented by the heads of madrasah Ibtidaiyah/Islamic elementary schools in Indonesia.

Initially, the idea of this research came from various information collected from the education and schooling managers in Indonesia who worry about the decrease in the quality of educational providence due to low-quality leadership, especially which is in accordance with their position as a principal newly hired by the government or the builder foundation. Becoming a principal is not their expectation. Becoming a principal with leadership task in the new or old school (because they work in the school since they were hired as a teacher) is a frightening challenge. The diverse information or more thorough investigation of the information using various approaches and personal sources as well as the relevant literature becomes the starting point of the study. The new principals who participated in the program “One Year Super Camp” Batches I to IV in Batu City, East Java, were the initial sources to deeply examine the issues of a principal’s failure in implementing his or her leadership.

Besides, the forum group discussion (FGD) held by UNICEF and the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia in some areas in Indonesia has opened the researcher’s sight by uncovering varied phenomena, issues, and problems of educational field related to the implementation of effective leadership of principal, especially in the context of local wisdom of each school under the policy of school-based management. Based on the results of FGD, it is found that the principals are not ready to implement the new educational policy due to the uncertainty of the government policy. Furthermore, it is also caused by the trend of dynamical globalization around the world that needs to be adopted by the local wisdom to support the implementation of the principal leadership value in strengthening the school organization culture. Based on various strategies, it is found that there is one interested strategy which is effective in strengthening the implementation of leadership value, school system, and school organization culture. The strategy is Islamic crash course that is carried out in some schools in Indonesia, especially the Islamic-based schools.

This research was conducted in the real and natural context based on the phenomena of the cause of school failure but successfully moved up after implementing many kinds of strategies, especially Islamic crash course in great and famous Islamic boarding schools such as Salafiyah Syafi’ieyah, Walisongo Panji, Nurul Burhan, Nurul Jadid, Sidogiri, Pesantren Ilmu Al-Qur’an, and Nurul Kholil. All those schools are located in Indonesia. The data of this research were divided into two categories, namely, primary and secondary data. The primary data are related to the problems faced by the school, strategy, model, and leadership values developed in every model. Meanwhile, the secondary data are related to the general and special issues encountered by the principal generally in other institutions through FGD and One Year Super Camp Program (OYSCP) as well as the problems undergone by the principal as the subject of this research.

The secondary data were collected from any informant such as principals, teachers, educational officers, the foundation committee as the direct supervisor of each school, school committee, Islamic boarding school committee, advisory board, and original students of 300 who were distributed in many places in Indonesia (Triwiyanto & Juharyanto, 2017). Meanwhile, the primary data were collected from 68 informants consisting of three principals, 78 teachers and educational officers, and 18 foundation committees from three schools. To obtain comprehensive data, the frequency of the researchers’ attendance and involvement in leadership and managerial activities becomes highly important. This research was implemented using a phenomenological qualitative approach with the multicase design. The researchers attempted to involve in all processes in FGD, OYSCP, and the events or programs undertaken by three schools as the research subjects. The involvement is combined with various techniques of collecting information, namely, interview of specific things related to three main research questions, documents, or the interaction among the teams in the three subject schools. Long and intensive involvement was required to find the natural phenomena attached to many events or activities in the three schools.

The data collection was performed through various methods, such as observation through participation, documentation, and in-depth interview. Following a validity test, the data were analyzed through data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The validity of the data was tested based on its credibility, dependability, and confirmability. The credibility was measured through prolonging engagement, persistent observation, member check, triangulation, and peer debriefing technique. Dependability was carried out by auditing the data collecting process in the field, whereas the confirmability was undertaken for the research result product by observing the correlation among the data, information, and interpretation.

Results and Discussion

Conclusion

In general, it can be concluded from the findings of this research that the Islamic crash course strategy is an effort that involves a third party, in this case, an Islamic boarding school, which is capable of providing a solution to the issue of weak leadership of new Islamic school principals, especially in strengthening the organizational culture of the school. Several specific conclusions could be drawn from the results of the study. First, a school principal succession that is not carefully planned has a potential to inhibit the enforcement of future institutional programs. Second, leadership issues found inside an organization could be solved by the Islamic crash course strategy using tashih, taushiyah, and tadrib models. Third, the three models for developing leadership values will include (a) tashih model, which covers the values of committed learning, self-awareness, compliance, obedience tilawy and tajwidy, loving Al-Qur’an, becoming examples in learning, qur’ani consistency, humility, and showing respects for teachers; (b) taushiyah model, which covers the values of belief in the positive meaning of heart connection, optimism, and devotion; And (c) tadrib model, which covers the values of simplicity, tawadu’, sincerity, independence, togetherness, equality, sacrifice, self-confidence, loving cleanliness and purity, and equitable responsibilities. Such values are the main and positive values to be developed in the form of organizational culture, which strengthens a school’s current achievement to obtain the higher achievement.

The strategy and model we found in this article might provide a functional basis for advancement in leadership, as well as contributing to how the organization develops the school leadership according to the local wisdom, primarily by asking the prominent and successful institution to help the weak leaders and team in maintaining and strengthening the organization. Islamic crash course can be a useful strategy for leadership, where the leaders and the team learn small things in a big institution, theoretically and practically by staying for some nights directly. It is a leadership transformation strategy, where leadership coaching and reinforcement are conducted indirectly through third-party assistance. A successful leader would arise from the awareness of their weaknesses, willingness to learn, strong commitment to change, and by building themselves to be a good model for others.