Abstract:
In this study, the leadership orientations of public school principals in the state ofKansas were examined. An electronic version of the Bolman and Deal leadershiporientations survey was sent to all public school principals. Approximately 41% ofKansas principals responded to the survey and over 50% (269) of the principals identifiedthemselves as elementary school principals. This study of leadership orientations ofKansas principals sought to determine if there was a correlation between demographicfactors such as the socio-economic status of the students, gender of the principal,classification of the location of the school (urban, rural, suburban), demographic makeupof the students, level (elementary, middle, high school) of school the principal leads, theAYP status of the school in the area of reading, and the AYP status of the school in thearea of math. This research has the potential to impact training and hiring of principals inthe state of Kansas because it identified a common leadership orientation used by amajority of principals who participated in the study. Additionally, this information couldbe valuable to administrators to guide them in self-reflecting on their own leadershiporientations.A leadership orientation analysis of the self-ratings of the participatingadministrators led to following findings: the human resource frame was the dominantleadership orientation used by the participating administrators, the structural leadershiporientation also exceeded the expected count, and political and symbolic scored wellbelow the expected count. The predominant use of the human resource leadershiporientation by Kansas public school principals is consistent with the research conductedby Bolman and Deal as well as others. This study did not find consistent results with leadership orientations being situational as have been suggested by theorists such asHersey and Blanchard.