The Leadership Teachers Want from Principals: Transformational

Abstract

The purpose of this study, which was part of a larger study, was to examine teacher perceptions of transformational leadership qualities among principals. From a randomly generated sample of 135 public schools in the province of Alberta, Canada, 77 schools agreed to participate in a study on leadership attributes of principals. Ten randomly selected teachers from each participating school were asked to complete the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (Bass & Avolio, 1995, 1997, 2000a) for their respective principals. The MLQ was a quantitative instrument in which teachers rated principals. Based on teacher responses, principals were stratified into categories according to whether they possessed high or low levels of transformational leadership qualities. Using the MLQ to rank principals allowed for clear selection criteria to group them. Once the principals were stratified, 10 teachers were then selected for in-depth interviews. Five of the teachers worked with principals who were characterized as highly transformational