Expertise in Principals' Problem Solving

Leithwood, Kenneth; Stager, Mary

doi:10.1177/0013161x89025002003

Cited by 103 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The findings from this study are consistent with results from two other studies: one by Leithwood and Stager (1989) concerning principals' problem-solving strategies and the other by Campbell-Evans (1988) which investigated the influence of values on principals' decision making using Beck's (1984aBeck's ( , 1984b value model. Leithwood and Stager found that principles or values served to provide structure for problem solving when principals lacked problem-relevant information or when the problem was considered unique.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

The influence of values on school administrator practices

Begley

Leithwood

1990

J Pers Eval Educ

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

The influence of values on school administrator practices

Begley

Leithwood

1990

J Pers Eval Educ

Self Cite

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“…Leithwood and Jantzi (2000) and Leithwood and Steinbach (1995) emphasize that these transformational leadership behaviors consist of problem-solving processes to further promote organizational change and improvement.…”

Section: Transformational Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Are the Different Types of Principals Across the United States? A Latent Class Analysis of Principal Perception of Leadership

Urick

Bowers

2013

Educational Administration Quarterly

133

170

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Purpose: Effective styles of principal leadership can help address multiple issues in struggling schools, such as low student achievement and high rates of teacher attrition. Although the literature has nominated certain “idealized” leadership styles as being more or less effective, such as transformational, instructional, and shared instructional leadership, we have little evidence about how principals may or may not choose to practice these styles across U.S. schools. Research Design: Latent class analysis was used to identify different types of principals across the United States. We analyzed the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey as it presents a unique opportunity to study the different types of U.S. principals since it contains leadership measures not found in other national surveys. A final sample of 7,650 public schools and principals was included in the analysis. Findings: Instead of idealized leadership styles signifying variations in practice, the differences between types of principals were defined by the degree of principal and teacher leadership. Further, the school and principal context, such as school size, urbanicity, accountability performance, and principal background, predicted the three significantly different principal types: controlling, frequent principal leadership; balkanizing, high degree of leadership shared with teachers; or integrating, frequent principal leadership as well as a high degree of leadership shared with teachers. Conclusions: These types suggest that principals simultaneously practice leadership behaviors associated with multiple leadership styles in accordance with their background and school context. These findings provide support for the use of more complex models to assess school leader effectiveness.

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“…This was likely the case for staff trying to decide whether and how to implement a "house system," since they had had no previous related experience. These problems had significant elements that might be labelled "unstructured," as defined in our previous research (see Leithwood and Stager, 1989). Principals did not have a significant amount of problem-relevant knowledge on which to draw, and their goals were ill defined.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This classification system includes four major categories of values and some 16 specific values within these categories, as outlined later in table 2. Leithwood and Stager (1989) used the six categories in the model to describe differences between the problem-solving processes of expert and typical elementary school principals working individually. Leithwood and Steinbach(in press)also used the model to describe the problem solving of chief education officers (Ontario's directors of education).…”

Section: A Model Of Administrative Problem Solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%