An Examination of Transformational School Leadership Qualities of Elementary Principals

An Examination of Transformational School Leadership Qualities of Elementary Principals

Henderson Lewis Jr., Veysel Altunel, Elizabeth P. Castro, Saleria Shaffer, Paula A. Thompson, Carlos G. Lee
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-8822-5.ch005
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Abstract

School leadership is an integral part of fostering a positive culture and climate in schools. The art of leading schools establishes a mission and vision that yields positive student learning outcomes. The leadership style that cultivates a school environment of community, excellence, and collegiality is transformational leadership. Transformational leadership qualities in school principals aid in developing sustainable and successful schools. Using a qualitative framework, three elementary school principals share their experiences of leading teams in the midst of a global pandemic while serving on a panel discussion. The findings from the panel discussion identified the themes of mindfulness, radical candor, professionalism, relatability, resilience, and engagement. These themes provide the skills needed for aspiring school principals to lead schools toward a vision of academic excellence.
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Introduction

School leaders have the primary responsibility of ensuring the successful operations of their school and the academic success of the students in their building. There is significant weight placed on the decisions that are made by school leaders on behalf of the school’s stakeholders, especially during times of crisis. As such, school leaders, more specifically principals, must tap into leadership qualities when making decisions during crises. Historically, transformational leadership has been studied as the primary leadership style of school principals (Berkovich, 2016). Hai, Van, and Thi (2021) explain transformational leadership as a leadership style that focuses on inspiring and motivating followers to work together toward achieving a shared vision while cultivating their individual potential. Transformational leadership focuses on creating robust connections, establishing high standards, and providing tailored assistance and guidance to assist in the growth and progress of others. This leadership style lends itself to five areas of leadership styles: charismatic leadership, visionary leadership, individualized consideration, positive organizational outcomes, and ethical leadership. School leaders typically rely on the use of transformational leadership as a method of leading the organization. This chapter will discuss how transformational leadership theory has been used by school principals during times of crisis to support igniting change in the school building both culturally and academically.

Purpose

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the skills principals need to be effective in a crisis. For this study, the qualitative research design was used to answer the research question from the perspective of the participants. This chapter will examine how school principals lead during and after a global pandemic using the attributes of transformational leadership and the principals’ ability to incorporate the identified qualities as a school leader to lead transformational change in schools both culturally and academically, as well as leverage the qualities to engage with staff, students, and families. Through this study, the researcher sought to identify key characteristics and behaviors of transformational leaders and their impact on the organization. This study used a phenomenological focus group approach to gain insight and understanding of principals’ leadership during and after a global pandemic as well as explore the qualities of a transformational leader. This chapter also discusses the ability to incorporate the identified qualities as a school principal to lead transformational change in schools both culturally and academically and leverage them to engage with staff, students, and families.

In the research on the leadership theories that influence principalship, the transformational leadership theory is explored. For this study, the transformational leadership theory served as the theoretical framework which aided in the study design, data collection, and data analysis processes which led to finding answers to the research question.

Study Design

Some questions that researchers seek to answer require a research methodology that goes beyond the analytical structure of quantitative research. For those research questions seeking to understand the perspective, experiences, and opinions of a person or group of people, quantitative research methodology is not always substantiated. Researchers use the qualitative research methodology when they are looking to inquire about the whys and hows of human behavior (Guest et al, 2013). Finding answers to questions that require a deeper look into the personal experiences, feelings, and expressed values of the participants calls for qualitative research to be conducted. According to Guest et al (2013), qualitative research is research using methods such as participant observation or case studies that result in a narrative, descriptive account of a setting or practice. In other words, the practices to collect data for qualitative research studies are formed around using storytelling and other methods to understand the lived experiences of participants. The discussion and results of qualitative research methods steer from the analytical practices of quantitative research, to focus on forming answers to the research question directly from the perspectives of the participants.

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