Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the degree of leadership practices perceived to be important by Radiologic Technology (RT) leaders in Los Angeles County as determined by the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) tool and personal interviews. Methodology: This is a mixed method research study (triangular mixed method research design used) where in both quantitative and qualitative data was collected. LPI instrument was used to collect quantitative data and personal interviews were conducted to collect qualitative data. Findings: Quantitative data showed that RT leaders give most importance to "Enable Others to Act" leadership practice and least importance was given to "Challenge the Process" leadership practice. Qualitative data showed that RT leaders give most importance to "Model the Way" leadership practice. Conclusion: Comparing the results of both qualitative and quantitative results, both qualitative and quantitative results agreed that "Challenge the Process" was least importantly practiced by RT leaders, however there was a contradiction towards the qualitative and quantitative results for the most importance Leadership Practice. Quantitative results showed that RT leaders' most important leadership practice was "Enable Others to Act", while the qualitative results showed that RT leaders most important leadership practice was "Model the Way". Recommendations: This study was focused only towards RT leaders in the Los Angeles County region. Further research can be expanded to other regions. This would allow full understanding of the degree of importance of five leadership practices of the LPI that would be important for RT leaders in their leadership roles. Further research can also be done using other available leadership instruments to understand in-depth leadership practices of RT leaders and also can compare its results with the LPI instrument that was used in this study. Another recommendation might be to conduct a leadership-training program to train the RT leaders on their current weak leadership practices and then examine their post training leadership practices.