Date of Graduation

1997

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the relationships between early and middle school principals' leadership style and school culture, controlling for demographics including: enrollment, school type, age, gender, years experience and county. The sample population for principal's leadership style was faculty from 97 early and middle schools, in one district from each of the eight West Virginia regions. Each principal of the same schools was surveyed for demographic data. Data were obtained through the faculty completion of a 40-item Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, a 38-item School Culture Survey, and a research designed questionnaire. Means, standard deviations, and multiple regression correlation analyses were performed to analyze the data. The study indicated that early and middle school principals' leadership had a profound effect on level of school culture. Initiating structure was strongly associated with a strong school culture. Conversely, a negative association existed between consideration leadership and school culture, as consideration increased the level of culture decreased. Principals' age was also negatively associated with school culture in that as age increased, the level of culture decreased. An ancillary finding showed that males are more likely than females to produce initiating structure leadership. The findings from this study and resulting conclusions indicated that early and middle school principals' leadership impacted level of school culture. A task-oriented leadership style resulted in a strong school culture while the reverse was indicated for the relations-oriented leadership. The unexpected results of this study increased the literature on leadership and raised other questions regarding leadership. The results are pertinent to state and local agencies in designing principal training programs.

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