Abstract
The Problem. The intent of the study was to determine if there were significant relationships between educational managers' leadership styles and educational philosophies. Halpin described leadership styles as initiating structure (task orientation) or consideration (relationship orientation). Fiedler further identified the two dimensions as major styles of leadership contingent upon situational variables and personality attributes. Purpose of the Study. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that a relationship existed between educational managers' leadership styles and educational philosophies. Further, if a relationship were shown to exist, the leadership styles and educational philosophies of educational managers were related to such demographic characteristics as age, years of experience in school management and number of years in present assignment. The study attempted to answer the following questions: (1) Is there a relationship between the leadership styles and educational philosophies of educational managers? (2) Is there a relationship between the leadership styles and such demographic characteristics as age, experience in educational management and the number of years in current assignment of educational managers? (3) Is there a relationship between the educational philosophies and such demographic characteristics as age, experience in educational management and the number of years in current assignment of educational managers? Methodology. Educational managers selected for this study were 102 of the 125 doctoral candidates enrolled in the Department of School Management at the University of La Verne. Participants were serving in various school administrative positions throughout California. The instruments used in this study were the Least Preferred CoWorker Scale (LPC), developed by Fred E. Fiedler, and the Ross Educational Philosophical Inventory (REPI), constructed by Colvin Ross. After the data were collected the correlational method was used for determining if relationships existed between educational managers' leadership styles and educational philosophies through the use of the Pearson Product-Moment correlation techniques. Scores on the LPC scale and scores from the philosophical categories of Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism and Existentialism were subjected to the correlation techniques to determine if a relationship existed between the LPC and each of the four educational philosophies, using .05 as the level of probability. Findings. The LPC scores and the scores of the Idealism category yielded a correlation coefficient of .186. These results indicated that there was a weak relationship between these two variables. The LPC was then correlated with the Realism category, revealing a correlation coefficient of .191. Again, though low, there was a weak relationship between the variables under consideration. Correlation of the LPC with the Pragmatism and Existentialism philosophies indicated that no relationship existed between those variables. Further, correlation of neither the LPC nor the REPI with the demographic data yielded a relationship between the variables. Conclusions and Recommendations. With the two exceptions noted above, the data seemed to indicate that the LPC and the REPI instruments measured different aspects of the educational managers' personality attributes. The findings, although limited in scope, indicate the need for further study in this area. (1) Similar studies should be conducted using a different population of educational managers. (2) A replication of this research project using different instruments to assess leadership styles and educational philosophies is needed. (3) Replication of this study using the same population but different instruments to measure these variables is also needed.