Date of Award

Fall 12-1-2006

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Robert Boyd

Second Advisor

Gregory R. Ulm

Third Advisor

Keith Spurgeon

Abstract

In this study, the researcher examined the leadership orientation of Indiana public school superintendents, utilizing the Leadership Orientations (Self) survey developed by Bolman and Deal (1997). This study sought to identify if a significant difference existed between a superintendent's choice of a dominant leadership frame of reference, and independent variables: gender, years of experience as a superintendent, school district setting, and initial educational level of training. Surveys were sent to 294 public school superintendents, a total of 162 or 55% of the superintendents participated in this study. This study, conducted in 2006, presented several findings. Over 72% of the superintendent participants had 10 or more years of experience as a superintendent, over 57% of the participants identified the human resources frame of leadership as their dominant frame, and over 55% of the superintendents identified the human resources frame of leadership as their most preferred while 93% identified the political frame as their least preferred frame. The independent variables (gender, years of experience as a superintendent, school district setting, and initial level of training), identified in this study provided no statistical significant difference in the leadership frame of reference that superintendents identified as their dominant frame. This study showed that all superintendents always reframe during their decision-making process at an average rate of 73% of the time. Female superintendents reframe 7% more often that male superintendents. In this study building principals agreed with the dominant leadership frame of reference that their superintendent identified as their own dominant frame 51 .8% of the time. Many of the findings in this study agree with the findings in Bolman and Deal's previous studies. It is believed that this research will expand upon these studies as well as other studies using Bolman and Deals' Leadership Orientations surveys.

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