The Relationship Between School Counselor Leadership Practices Comprehensive Program Implementation

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school counselor leadership practices and comprehensive program implementation at the local school level.

METHODOLOGY
Participants were a convenience sample of 305 professional school counselors from a southeastern state. Respondents completed the Leadership Practices Inventory, the School Counseling Program Implementation Survey (Carey & Elsner, 2006), and provided information about themselves, their organizations, and education and training in school counseling. The typical respondent was female (93%), Caucasian (72%) or African American (25%), 42 years of age, and employed at the primary/elementary school level (45%). Cronbach alphas (internal reliability) in this study were .74 Model, .85 Inspire, .80 Challenge, .73 Enable, and .80 Encourage.

KEY FINDINGS
Enabling was the most frequent leadership practice, followed by Encourage and Model, and Challenge, and Inspire. School counselors who were either older, who had more experience, or who had spent more time at their current schools were likely to score higher on all or most leadership practices. Indeed, multiple regression analyses showed that age significantly predicted Inspire, Challenge, Enable and Encourage. School size predicted Challenge, Enable and Encourage, while years of experience and licensure predicted Model. Model and Enable both predicted school counseling program implementation.