Measuring Leadership Practices of Independent School Heads Using the LPI Self-Report

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this research was to identify the self-perceived leadership practices of heads of schools in California independent Schools as determined the extent of endorsement of the five leadership practices by the Leadership Practice Inventory.

METHODOLOGY
All 219 member heads of schools of California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) were invited to participate and 35 did (16% response rate). Respondents indicated how frequently each of the five practices applied in their school. For this study, the Cronbach’s alphas were .60 for Model, .69 for Inspire, .75 for Challenge, .50 for Enable, and .80 for Encourage.

KEY FINDINGS
The most leadership practice most frequently applied was Enable, followed by Model, and then Inspire and Encourage, and Challenge. Three leadership practices (Model, Challenge, and Encourage) were significantly lower than a comparison group of public school principals (Hammack, 2010), and did not significantly vary for Inspire and Enable.