Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Program for Educational Leaders
Advisor
Robert Esenberg
Committee Member
Lucille Beisner
Committee Member
Barbara Packer
Keywords
assessment instruments, communication, communicative leadership, development plans, educational leadership, educational leadership characteristics, educators, Illinois, interviews, leadership abilities, leadership assessment, leadership attributes, leadership characteristics, leadership development, leadership potential, leadership practices, leadership preparation, leadership style, Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), LEAD-Self, literature reviews, mentoring leadership, personal development plans, public school administrators, public school superintendents, school administration, school leadership, situational leadership, stressors, superintendent tenure, superintendency, superintendents, surveys, The 21st Century School Administrator Skills-Self Assessment, traits, transactional leadership, transformational leadership, tenure, workplace stressors
Abstract
This applied dissertation was designed to appraise the personal leadership attributes of educators and to provide a framework to help them prepare a personal development plan toward the attainment of a public school superintendent’s position. A literature review of effective educational leadership characteristics was conducted. The review included a search for available instruments for assessment of leadership characteristics, potential, and style, and preparatory programs available to improve leadership ability. In addition, the search yielded an increased awareness of associated stressors that have been known to affect superintendent leadership and position tenure.
The literature review was comprehensive and yielded relative information. Over 80 descriptive traits of effective educational leadership were reviewed. Condensed listings of common traits were presented by categorizing them into three dimensions: (a) educational leadership; (b) communicative leadership; and (c) mentoring leadership. In addition, three leadership assessment instruments were cited: (a) The LEAD-Self instrument, developed by Hersey and Blanchard (1998) organized around situational leadership as a foundation; (b) The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), with transformational and transactional leadership as its philosophical base; and (c) The 21st Century School Administrator Skills-Self Assessment, which is framed into three areas: educational leadership, communication, and developing self and others.
The writer concluded that it was beneficial to develop a generalized framework for personal leadership preparation toward a public school superintendent's position. The writer presented his own 3-year plan toward gaining the position in the state of Illinois as an example of how the development plan works. The LPI and The 21st Century School Administrator Skills-Self Assessment were utilized by the writer and are recommended to others to help identify strengths and weaknesses in the area of educational leadership. The writer analyzed and associated those findings with the collection of information gained from surveys and interviews with public school superintendents. Documents about state minimal requirements for public school superintendency were also utilized to construct the development plan.