Principal Leadership Behaviors: Differences in Perception

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship in private elementary schools between principal’s and teacher’s perceptions of effective leadership behaviors.

METHODOLOGY
The population consisted of all elementary schools in Educational Region One of Thailand (surrounding Bangkok). Ninety-eight principals from a sample of 140 schools participated (70%), along with 785 of their teachers (82%). Both groups completed the LPI. Translation of the LPI into Thai took place following Brislin’s (1985) guidelines, including four rounds of back-translation. Internal reliability for the Thai-language version was .89 for the Self version and .87 for the Observer version. There were twice as many female principals as male. All but 10 percent had at least a college degree. Nearly all of the teachers were female (92%), and 40 percent were in the 41-50 age group. All but 17% had a college degree.

KEY FINDINGS
Using factor analysis with this sample, the author generated new scales for both the principals and the teachers. Leadership scales named for principals were Challenging, Inspiring, Enabling and Modeling and for teachers were Challenging, Inspiring, and Enabling. The author concludes: “both principals and teachers perceived leadership practice as a means to achieve educational reform in Thailand” (p. 98).