Date of Award

1983

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the leadership behavior of local public school superintendents in Louisiana by organizational characteristics. More specifically, this study proposed to determine how the leadership styles of Louisiana public school superintendents vary in terms of size of districts administered when the following variables were examined: (a) the educational administrative training of the superintendent; (b) the institution from which the superintendent attained his graduate degree; (c) the number of years employed as superintendent in his present position; (d) the total years employed by his present local school system; (e) the position held prior to becoming superintendent; (f) the age of the superintendent; and (g) the salary of the superintendent. Through the utilization of the Ohio State Theory of Leader Behavior, the researcher examined the differences in the leader behavior of Louisiana public school superintendents on two dimensions, initiating structure and consideration. Each dimension was perceived from the perspective of the superintendents themselves and of their administrative staff. The population of this study was the school superintendents of the 66 school systems in Louisiana. The school systems were categorized into three groups according to the size of the school district in terms of public student registration. The sample consisted of 62 superintendents and 303 adminstrative staff members. Analysis of variance was utilized to determine whether significant differences existed between specified groups of superintendents. The results from this study indicate that the independent variables of education, institution from which graduate training was attained, years employed as superintendent, and years employed in system were significant. That is, the analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the initiating structure and consideration means when leader behavior was perceived by the superintendents or the administrative staff members.

Pages

130

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.3878

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