The Analysis of the Role of Principal Leadership in Improving School

Productivity of Elementary Schools in Medan Sunggal in the

Academic Year of 2017/2018

Opy Triansyah

, Eduward Situmorang

, Swara Kasih Kartini Putri

, Nurul Shadrina Bintang

and

Ummi Chairani

Postgraduate State University of Medan, Medan -Indonesia

Keywords: Role Of Principal Leadership, School Productivity

Abstract: This study aimed to find out how the role of principal leadership is in improving school productivity of all

elementary schools of Medan Sunggal district. This research was conducted using case study method. The

population of this study is the principal, teachers, and all students of State Elementary Schools in Medan

Sunggal. The technique used in collecting the sample is purposive sampling technique. While the data used

in this research are interviews, observations, and documents, which then were analyzed using interactive

techniques. Based on the findings obtained from the field, it can be concluded the role of principal

leadership in improving school productivity in elementary schools are: a) to motivate the teachers and

students b) to give example of leadership by being disciplined c) to pay attention to the welfare the teacher

d) to implement and observe the process of the resources used to achieve an effective and an efficient goal

d) to balance the input and output comparison and show how to use them.

1 INTRODUCTION

Education is a very important aspect of life, because

in this very modern era education has become a

benchmark of someone's success. That's where

humans compete to get the best education and

improve the way to determine the quality of their

education. the quality of someone's education is

determined by the place where he gets his education

in educational institutions, one of which is school.

Schools are educational institutions and formal

organizations in which lies the elements of students,

teachers, employees and principals as leaders. In an

institution, especially schools, they also carry out

school management functions namely management

of education. Every organization or institution

always needs and has a leader in carrying out every

management activity. The success of an organization

depends heavily on how the leadership in the

organization. Leaders are people who occupy

positions, carry out the duties of leadership Sondang

P Siagian in Abdul Aziz Wahab (2006: 83) states

that, "Leadership is the core of an organization and

management, so that the success of an organization

in achieving its goals depends on the ability of its

leaders in moving. The Principal is the manager or

the leader of the school who is in charge of directing

all the people and facilities in the school. Thus, the

principal is someone who plays a huge role in

determining the school atmosphere.

School is an organizational unit led by a

principal. An effective leader is a leader who

influences and directs all the behavior of his

employee in such a way. The reason for this is to

make all of his employees' behavior is in line with

the principal as the leader in his school must show

positive attitude and discipline so that it can be an

example of discipline for school resident, especially

for the teachers and employees. The teachers and

employees are the important elements for the

success of the vision and mission of a school, so that

the school is expected to have quality products later.

Productivity plays a role in the world of

education. Indirectly, school productivity will affect

the academic quality and students' morale. If school

productivity is high, then the student achievement

will increase. School productivity is not something

that stands alone, school productivity is affected by

Triansyah, O., Situmorang, E., Putri, S., Bintang, N. and Chairani, U.

The Analysis of the Role of Principal Leadership in Improving School Productivity of Elementary Schools in Medan Sunggal in the Academic Year of 2017/2018.

DOI: 10.5220/0009496701370140

In Proceedings of the 1st Unimed International Conference on Economics Education and Social Science (UNICEES 2018), pages 137-140

ISBN: 978-989-758-432-9

 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reser ved

137

several factors, both internal and external factors.

External factors relate to the school system, namely

the authority that is hierarchically above it, and the

condition of the school which surround it. The

connection between this system will affect the

quality of the teachers' performance. While the

internal factors are related to the teacher's personal

characteristics in carrying out his duties as a teacher,

and his interaction with the schools’ environment, as

well as the leadership of school principals also

school systems and policies. School productivity in

elementary school can also be seen from the quality

of graduation in the form of achievement in the

academic field, seen from the acquisition of the

graduation results in each year and the percentage of

graduation. While non-academic achievements are

seen from the success of schools in various

competitions and championships in both the arts and

sports. The achievements in the academic field of

Medan Sunggal Elementary Schools are still not

satisfactory because of the data obtained from the

UPT sub district, even though the percentage of

graduated students was high in the 2017/2018 school

year, only 1 student did not graduate because the

percentage of graduation was achieved from the

Graduation Standard (SKL) was very low.

Based on this, the question arises "What is the

principals’ leadership role in increasing school

productivity in the Elementary Schools in Medan

Sunggal Sub-district?" This research focuses on the

leadership of principals and productivity. The

objectives to be achieved from this research are: (a)

to find out how the role of principal leadership in

school productivity in Public Elementary Schools in

Medan Sunggal.

2 THEORICAL FRAMEWORK

Educational Leadership Concept

The word lead (lead) is derived from the word Anglo

Saxon which is generally used in North European

language, which means the road or route of the ship.

According to Gardner (Usman 2013: 307) "leaders

are the people who become examples, influence the

behavior of their followers through a number of

significant feelings of their followers. Being a

different example by giving an example ".

Leadership as one of the managements functions is

to achieve organizational goals. Wahjosumidjo

(2011: 17) states "leadership is translated into traits,

personal behavior, influence on others, patterns of

interaction, work relationships between roles,

position of an administrative position, and

perception of others about the legitimacy of

influence. "Educational leadership is related to the

principal's problem in increasing the opportunity to

hold meetings effectively with teachers in a

conducive situation. Mulyasa (2013: 17) argues that

"the principal's leadership performance is an effort

made and results that can be achieved by the

principal in applying school's management to

actualize the goal of education as effective and

efficient, productive and accountable". Good

principals are qualified. The quality is not claimed

by a leader or by those who will be promoted or

promoted to sit on that position, but by the quality of

the recognition from the subordinates or the

community.

Principal’s Leadership

A principal is said to be successful when they

understand the existence of the school as a complex

and unique organization, and when he is able to

carry out the role as the person who is given the

responsibility to lead the school. Superior leadership

is built on values. Maxwell (Karwati and Priansa

2013: 177) that "people must trust the leader first,

then the vision. Trust is the foundation of leadership.

This means that the school's vision, mission, and

goals will succeed if teachers, staff, and other

employees believe in the principal’s leadership."

The principal main task consists of the creators of

the learning community, leaders, managers, and

supervisors. The task of the principal as a leader

reflects his duties as an innovator, and motivator.

While the duties of the principal as manager

represent the duties of the principal as an

administrator, because noting activities is one of the

manager's functions which is reporting. The task of

the principal as supervisor is to carry out

supervision, which carry out the supervision, which

is professional activities in order to improve the

school's quality and its components as a whole.

Based on Kepmendiknas Number 162 of 2003,

about the Teacher Assignment Guidelines as

Principal stated that "the duties of the principal are

educators, managers, administrators, supervisors,

leaders, entrepreneurs, and climate creators. These

tasks are often abbreviated as EMASLEC. the term

"productivity" comes from English word

productivity, which means the ability to produce

something. Whereas work means the activity of

doing something to make a living. The same thing

was stated by The Liang Gie that work productivity

is the ability to produce a work that is more than the

usual size that is already common. A slightly

different opinion is expressed by Hadari that

productivity can be interpreted as a comparison

between the results obtained (output) and the

number of work sources used as input. Productivity

is said to be high when the work performance is

produced meet the target, both in terms of quality

UNICEES 2018 - Unimed International Conference on Economics Education and Social Science

138

and quantity also meeting the standards which

already determined, in the other hand the

productivity is said to be low when the work

performance does not meet the target in both in

terms of quality or quantity. According to Whitmore

in Mulyasa stated that: "Productivity is a measure of

the resources to the amount of the employee

resources". It views productivity as a measure of the

use of organizational resources which is usually

expressed as the ratio of output achieved with the

resources used.

Factors that Influence Teacher Working

Productivity

A teacher can achieve a high level of productivity if

it is supported by factors that influence it, both

internal which coming from the teacher himself and

those which coming from outside. Sedarmayanti

stated that the characteristics of productive

individuals which are: 1) constructive actions, 2)

confidence, 3) having a sense of responsibility, 4)

having a sense of love for their work, 5) having a

foresight, 6) being able to solve problems, 7) can

adapt to an environmental changing, 8) have a

positive contribution to the environment, 9) have the

power to realize its potential.

According to Mulyasa (2002: 92) productivity in

education is related to the overall process of

structuring and the use of resources to achieve the

goals of education effectively and efficiently.

Formally, productivity is a concise measure of the

quality and quantity of performance with the use of

defined resources. Productivity is measured at the

level of individuals, groups or organizations. As was

said by Malayu S.P. Hasibuan (2003: 123) states that

productivity is a comparison between output and

input and strengthens the way of using both the

sources in producing goods or services. The same

thing stated by Sutrisno (2010: 207) suggests that

productivity is output per unit, or output divided by

input, or rational between output and input.

Productivity in the education world is the best

comparison between the results obtained (output)

and the number of sources used (input). Productivity

can be expressed with both quantity and quality.

Output quantity is the number of graduates, while

input is the amount of school employee, and other

resources.

Buchari Alma (2005: 64) argues that school

productivity is a measure of effectiveness in the

form of equal input, quality output, output science

that is balanced with needs, adequate graduate

income; and efficient in the form of: high learning

motivation; high morale, trust of various parties,

financing as small as possible but great results.

According to Thomas, J. Alan (1971: 12-23) school

productivity includes (1) The Administrator

Production Function (PFI); namely managerial

functions (administration); (2) The Psychologist's

Production Function (PPF); namely behavioral

(psychological) functions; and (3) The Economic

Production Function (EPF); namely economic

function (economical). this shows that school

effectiveness is very important, including

managerial, psychological, and economic, all of

which are interrelated.

3 RESEARCH METHOD

This study used a qualitative approach, namely

research that emphasizes on the quality or the most

important thing of the nature of an item / service.

The most important thing from the nature of

something in the form of symptoms / social

phenomena, namely the meaning behind the incident

that can be made valuable lessons for a development

concept of theory.

This research was conducted at all 060887 public

elementary schools Medan Sunggal, observed by the

principal, and colleagues. The subject of the research

is a source of data that provides clarity of the data

regarding the problem being studied. The concept of

the research subject relates to what or who is

researched. Satori and Komariah (2010: 45) said

"research subjects are entities that influence research

design, data collection, and data analysis decisions".

The subject of this research was the principal, and

the teachers of all 060887 public elementary schools

Medan Sunggal in increasing its performance.

In qualitative research, the research instrument or

the tool is the researcher himself. The research

instrument is the researcher himself, because in

research that uses a qualitative approach researchers

are the main instrument. According to Riduwan

(2010: 71), "the research instrument describes all the

tool data collection used, data collection processes

and instrument quality determination techniques

(validity and reliability). The researcher makes a set

of observation guidelines, interview guidelines, and

documentation studies which are used as general

guidelines in the recording process. To obtain valid

data, especially those obtained through observation

and interviews, examination techniques are needed.

One technique used is to check the degree of

trust. Data and information that were obtained were

analyzed with a qualitative pattern and interpreted

continuously from the beginning of the research

until the end of the research.

The Analysis of the Role of Principal Leadership in Improving School Productivity of Elementary Schools in Medan Sunggal in the

Academic Year of 2017/2018

139

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The role of school principals is very influential on

school productivity because of the rules applied by

the principal in improving teachers' discipline, in

which the principal tries to be an example in the

school environment by coming early and coming

home late and checking the teachers’ presence. And

this is also inseparable from the leadership style

applied by the principal in improving teacher

discipline, namely the style of telling.

The telling leadership style is carried out by the

principal at the teacher council meeting, in the style

of the principal telling every morning, by sitting at

the teacher council office, he monitors every teacher

who comes and reminds him immediately when the

teaching hours started. Competence can be

understood as a teacher's ability to carry out

responsibilities responsibly and appropriately. The

skills that must be have by the teacher including: the

ability to open the learning, mastering teaching

materials, classroom management, using the media.

Based on the results of research conducted by

researchers, the contribution of the principal's

influence on the productivity of schools in Medan

Sunggal Public Elementary School is good enough.

In essence, the leadership of a school principal will

make colors on school productivity to perform well.

Schools must be a means in improving the ability of

students so that they become productive, meanwhile,

the principal as a leader is able to become a

motivator, mediator and facilitator in improving the

quality of schools through high school productivity.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the findings of the study in the field, as

well as the discussion of the results of the study, it

can be concluded about the roles of the principal in

improving school productivity, which are also the

answer to the research questions. The roles are: a) to

motivate teachers and students b) to exemplify

leadership by being disciplined c) to pay attention to

the welfare of the teachers d) to implement and

supervise the process of structuring the use of

resources to achieve effective and efficient goals d)

to balance the comparison of inputs and outputs and

showing how to use them.

Based on the findings of the research regarding

the effect of the principal leadership and teacher

performance on school productivity, the following

can be suggested: (1) For the principal, to optimize

leadership in order to improve teacher performance

in the learning process, it is expected for the

principal to able to increase school productivity,

which indirectly affects school productivity on

academic and students' morale (2) The performance

of teachers, to improve the quality of the process in

implementing learning in schools, is expected to

continuously improve their productivity so that they

become teachers who are professional in carrying

out their duties. (3) This study only examined the

effect of principal leadership in increasing school

productivity in public elementary schools in Medan

Sunggal. Therefore, it is still necessary to do further

research by selecting other variables that are still

within the scope of school productivity to explain

other variables that have a large influence on school

productivity.

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