New School Counselors’ Perceptions of Factors Influencing Their Roles as Leaders

Abstract

This qualitative study explored the experiences of new school counselors in establishing themselves as leaders in their schools. Specifically, it focused on factors this population perceives as promoting or impeding their role as leaders. We interviewed 12 participants in their first through third year as school counselors. Four themes emerged from the data including intrapersonal factors, sociocultural factors, systemic factors, and interactive factors. We discuss implications for counselor educators, district supervisors, and school counselors.

Examining Ecological Factors that Predict School Counselors’ Engagement in Leadership Practices

“…The results concerning age as a significant predictor to school counselors’ leadership practices suggest that as school counselors increase in age, they are more likely to engage in such practices. This seems to be both supported (Mason & McMahon, 2009; Mullen et al, 2019; Robinson et al, 2019) and challenged (e.g., Lowe et al, 2017) by the extant school counseling leadership literature. For instance, Mason and McMahon’s (2009) results indicated that older school counselors were more likely to engage in leadership practices, whereas Lowe et al’s (2017) results suggested that age and years of experience were nonsignificant predictors of transformational leadership practice.…”

“…Specifically, we employed ESC to explore four levels of ecological factors in relation to school counselors' leadership practices. Despite the limited empirical evidence for the ESC framework, some school counseling studies appear to have organized their results within an ecological framework (e.g., Robinson et al, 2019).…”

“…The counseling profession recognizes individuals and their environments within their cultural context; therefore, it is important to consider school counselors' sociocultural identities and how environmental forces such as discrimination and oppression may shape their leadership practices (Robinson et al, 2019). Scholars have contended that individuals may have a strong leadership capacity, but societal biases toward an individual's identities and social locations, such as race, gender, age, or social class, can stifle their overall leadership development (Murphy & Johnson, 2011).…”

“…Scholars have contended that individuals may have a strong leadership capacity, but societal biases toward an individual's identities and social locations, such as race, gender, age, or social class, can stifle their overall leadership development (Murphy & Johnson, 2011). We specifically investigated the role of school counselors' race, gender, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), and current SES-which Robinson et al (2019) identified as potential salient sociocultural factors-in predicting school counseling leadership practice.…”

“…One limitation is that the present study employed a cross-sectional survey, which does not allow conclusions to be drawn regarding cause-and-effect relationships between the independent and dependent variables among practicing school counselors. The cross-sectional design used in our study does not fully capture the dynamic, interactive relationships between school counseling leadership and various ecological levels (Robinson et al, 2019). Another limitation is that all variables were measured with subjective ratings.…”