The Principalship: Essential Core Competencies for Instructional Leadership and Its Impact on School Climate

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions of principals’ leadership behaviors influencing the schools’ climate according to Green’s (2010) ideologies of the 13 core competencies within the four dimensions of principal leadership. Data from the Leadership Behavior Inventory (Green, 2014) suggest 314 teachers perceive that 13 core competencies positively influence school climate through effective leadership. Teachers’ perceptions of principals exhibiting the 13 core competencies suggested that professionalism ranked as the most prevalent behavior among principals. A multiple regression analysis determined public teachers perceived that diversity, one of the 13 core competencies that involve principals respecting the ideas of others and eliminating biases, had the greatest impact on school climate. An independent sample t-test revealed that 11 of the 13 core competencies were statistically significant among private and public teachers’ perceptions, but a Bonferroni adjustment determined that only five core competencies were significant. Further analyses revealed that there was no statistically significant evidence to support teachers’ perceptions of school climate differing between private and public schools.