An exploration into the effect of leadership behaviour of principals on school culture in selected international schools in South East Asia

• Main Author: Langridge, Christopher
• Published: University of Nottingham 2016
• Subjects: LB Theory and practice of education
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.701193

This study investigates the links between the leadership of school principals and school culture in international schools in South East Asia. Two main research questions shaped the study: i) To what extent, if at all, do the principals exhibit behaviours of transformational leadership? ii) How does the selected transformational principal’s leadership style and behaviour affect the culture of the schools? The study, employing mixed methods, was split into two distinct phases. Phase 1 examined the leadership styles of the principals of the selected schools using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass, 1998) and Phase 2 was an in-depth study of the three principals selected and their schools exploring in detail how their differing leadership values and behaviour influenced school culture. Qualitative data collected in phase 2 was through interviews, observation and the gathering of data from artefacts. The major findings of the study were: 1. Both phases of the study show that the three principals show particular behaviours of transformational leadership with different levels of display. The findings also show that the leader with the highest levels of transformational leadership is leading the school with the highest outcome scores from phase 1. 2. Although the project was designed to investigate principal transformational leadership, the three principals showed usage of various leadership styles and behaviours whilst performing their duties. 3. Context, power, trust and change are important considerations in the three principals’ leadership behaviour investigated in the project. 2 4. The principals’ perceptions of their leadership style and behaviour differed from the way that the leadership teams and other teachers saw them. 5. All three schools have different cultures. These cultures have been characterised as being ‘not rock the boat’ with School E, ‘slow and steady’ with School L and ‘the extra mile’ with School J. 6. There is a relationship between the transformational leadership behaviours of the principals and the culture existing in the three schools.