Identification and alignment of Lebanese teachers’ and principals’ perspectives of effective school leadership -

Abstract

This study explored the concept of effective school leadership from the perspectives of Lebanese practitioners mainly principals and teachers. The study has a three-fold purpose: (a) to develop a grounded, context-based model that reflects principals’ and teachers’ perspectives of leadership effectiveness, (b) to identify the degree of alignment between their perspectives, and (c) to compare Lebanese conceptions of effective school leadership with Western-based conceptions included in a model constructed from literature which combines instructional and transformational leadership characteristics. The study used a qualitative research design which employed the grounded theory methodology. Data were collected using individual, in-depth interviews with twelve principals and twelve teachers representing public, private and private-free schools. Data were analyzed and coded using the constant comparative approach where the researcher began analysis with the first data collected and constantly compared the properties of concepts and categories among the emerging data sets so as to generate themes. Two compiled profiles were generated in this study: the first highlighted the principals’ views and the second the teachers’. Then, a combined profile – the grounded profile – was built comprising characteristics of effectiveness that were prevalent in the responses of ten or more participants. The findings of the study revealed (1) a striking agreement between teachers’ and principals’ responses on most of the main characteristics of effectiveness; (2) characteristics of effectiveness as conceived by the Lebanese practitioners reflect a leadership model based in possessing interpersonal skills and exceptional personal traits, and dominated by organizational and instructional managerial practices; and (3) comparison between the themes of the grounded model and the Western-based model reveal a few areas of similarities and many areas of differences, some of which were unique to