The Interaction of Principal and Teacher Instructional Influence as a Measure of Leadership as an Organizational Quality

Abstract

Purpose: This article presents the design and test of a measure of school leadership as an organizational quality through the interaction of principal and teacher instructional influence. The Organizational Leadership Model hypothesizes four distinct conditions of school leadership, and the analysis investigates the relationship between teacher, principal, and school outcomes; school descriptors; and a school’s category in the Organizational Leadership Model. Theoretical Orientation: Ogawa and Bossert’s conception of leadership as an organizational quality serves as the theoretical foundation of this study, along with contemporary theories of distributed leadership, influence as leadership, and measurement of leadership. Data Source: This study draws teacher, principal, and school restricted-use data from the 2003-2004 Schools and Staffing Survey. The sample consists of 7,950 schools, their principals, and a random sample of teachers from each school. The school is the primary unit of analysis. Analysis: This study is conducted in two phases. In Phase 1, the Organizational Leadership Model (OLM) is tested for its ability to discriminate between teacher, principal, and school outcomes through a series of one-way ANOVA models. In Phase 2, a series of brr weighted ordered logit models explores the predictive power of school descriptors in determining the OLM category of schools. Findings: The analysis finds evidence that the Organizational Leadership Model is a robust measure of leadership as an organizational quality that effectively captures differences in school leadership contexts at the level of principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of their influence that precede task-oriented behaviors. Additionally, the study highlights the troubling relationship between schools serving high-need populations and those typified by low levels of school leadership. Implications for Research and Practice: The article identifies several avenues for future research to extend inquiry on the potential of the Organizational Leadership Model to develop additional nuance in discriminating between relationships among school contexts, leadership conditions, and teacher, principal, and school outcomes. The article further urges those implicit in maintaining the status quo of poor leadership accountability in schools, including those in the research community, to seek interventions at the level of principal and teacher perceptions of and professional standards for their practice.