Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between an elementary school leadership team's degree of teamness and the school's percentage of students scoring at or above the 75th percentile on the 1998–99 SAT-9 in the content area of reading. Methodology. A descriptive and correlational study was conducted using randomly selected elementary school's in four southern California counties. Harvey and Drolet's Survey of Team Characteristics was sent to sixty-nine elementary school leadership teams; forty-six teams completed and returned surveys for a response rate of 67 percent. A measure of central tendency and a Pearson product moment correlation were used to analyze the data. Findings. The major findings were: elementary school leadership teams reported themselves on a Likert scale to be between "somewhat" and "very" characteristic of the group in teamness characteristics. The lowest mean scores were responses that dealt with balanced tasks, openly dealt with conflict, management of group stress, and engagement of the group in periodic "time-outs" to address individual concerns about group process or behaviors. There was no correlation between a leadership team's shared purpose, interaction, and overall degree of teamness and the elementary school's academic performance. There was a low and negative correlation between a team's ability to balance tasks and academic performance and a low and negative correlation between a team's understanding of their organizational structure and academic performance. Conclusions. There is a wealth of literature on the benefits of teams in the workplace, yet there is a lack of a relationship between teams in educational organizations and student achievement as indicated by this study. Implications. Rather than utilizing top-down hierarchies, principals must now exercise transformational leadership by utilizing teams of teachers to assist in the responsibilities and decision-making of the school improvement process. Empowering teachers to assume leadership roles may improve student learning and provide a valuable resource for principals.