Fundamentals of School Administration
EDU 547 - Spring 2014 Semester
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Chapter Twelve Presentation:
“Leadership in Schools”
Presented by: Anyha Lord-Jerris
Professor: Dr. Lauren Larsen
“Effective education leadership makes a difference in
improving learning…What’s far less clear…is just how
leadership matters, how important those effects are in
promoting learning of all children, and what the essential
ingredients of successful leadership are.”
M. Christine DeVita
Taking Stock in Education Leadership
“There is a growing school of thought … that men may be
biologically unsuited to hold political office and
leadership positions.”
Maureen Dowd
Are Men Necessary?
 Importance
of leaders and leadership
 Critical situational factors in educational
leadership
 Leader effectiveness
 Contingency models
 New leadership theories
 Transformational leaders
According to Yukul (2002), “leadership
should be defined broadly as a social process
in which a member or members of a group or
organization influence the interpretation of
internal and external events, the choice of
goals or desired outcomes, organization of
work activities, individual motivation and
abilities, power relations and shared
orientations.”
 Leaders
– stress adaptive change and getting
people to agree about what needs to be
accomplished.
Establish
Direction
 Administrators
Align
People
Motivate
& Inspire
– emphasize stability and
efficiency
Plan &
Budget
Organize &
Staff
Control &
Solve
Problems
According to research, Kyung Ae Chung and
Cecil Miskel (1989) summarize the major
findings:
Administering schools is feverish and
consuming;
School leaders rely on verbal media;
Administrator activities vary widely;
Managerial work is fragmented; for school
administrators;
Traits, Skills, and Leadership
 Trait approach of leadership – leadership is
inherited and determined by social
circumstance.
 Early Trait Research – personal factors
associated with leadership (capacity,
achievement, responsibility, participation,
and status).
Personality
• Selfconfidence
• Stress
tolerance
• Emotional
maturity
• Integrity
• Extroversion
Motivation
• Task &
interpersonal
needs
• Achievement
orientation
• Power needs
• Expectations
• Self-efficacy
Skills
• Technical
• Interpersonal
• Conceptual
Organizational
(Size, Hierarchy,
Formalization, &
Leader role)
Subordinate
(Personality,
Motivation, & Abilities)
Internal Environment
(Climate & Culture)
External Environment
(Social & Economic)

Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ)
started in Ohio State University in the 1940’s. It
measures two basic dimensions: initiating structure
and consideration.

Four major findings of the study:
 Initiating structure and consideration are fundamental
dimensions of leader behavior
 Most effective leaders integrate both high initiating
structure and consideration
 Superiors and subordinates tend to evaluate the
contributions of the leader behavior dimensions
oppositely in assessing effectiveness.
 A slight relationship exists between how leaders say
they should behave and how subordinates describe
that they do behave.
Effectiveness Indicators for Educational Leaders
• Perceived
reputation
• Selfassessment
Personal
Organizational
• Goal
attainment
• Satisfaction
• Performance
Individual
“Leadership effectiveness can be defined as having a more objective
dimension – accomplishment of organizational goals – and two
subjective dimensions perceptual evaluations of significant reference
groups and overall job satisfaction of subordinates.”
 Instructional
Leadership
 Least Preferred Co-Worker Model
 Substitutes for Leadership (depends on the
characteristics of subordinates, of the task,
and of the organization.
 Distributed Leadership (leadership by teams
and groups – site based management)
 Reformulated Path-Goal Theory (leader
behaviors, situation, and outcomes) refer to
page 442 table 12.4

“James MacGregor Burns (1978) is commonly
credited with formulating the ideas of transactional
and transformational leadership and applying them
to the political arena.” Bass built on the work of
Burns and developed a “full range leadership
model.”
 Bass



identifies three major types of leadership:
Laissez-Faire Leadership
Transactional Leadership
Transformational Leadership
A Full-Range Leadership Continuum
(Table 12.5 page 445)
Laissez-Faire
Leadership
1.Nontransactional
or passive
Transactional
Leadership
Transformational
Leadership
2. Contingent
5. Idealized
influence
6. Inspirational
motivation
7. Intellectual
stimulation
8. Individualized
consideration
reward leadership
3. Active
management by
exception
4. Passive
management by
exception
The concept of leadership is extremely
complex and ambiguous. It is evident that
organizations recognize the importance and
value of effective leadership as illustrated by
the various theories developed and studies
conducted. When examining effective
leadership it is important to take a holistic
approach to achieve the right balance.