This study examined the literature on leadership and counselling to determine their similarities, and investigated how principals perceived their leadership role in terms of the theories of counselling and contemporary leadership. It further explored the implications of the findings for the selection, performance appraisal and professional development of principals. The research was divided into four stages. Firstly, the literature of effective counsellors and educational leaders was reviewed to find their significant similarities. Secondly, 116 principals from Government and Catholic primary, secondary and special schools in Sydney, NSW, Australia were involved in a Q-sort survey to prioritise what they deemed to be the essential emphases of effective educational leaders in schools. Analysis was by descriptive quantitative methods to provide a basis for subsequent interviews and qualitative analysis. Thirdly, structured interviews were carried out with thirteen of these principals to cast further light on the Q-sort survey results. Qualitative analysis was largely based on Bohm???s interpretation of Strauss???s axial coding paradigm. Fourthly, content analysis was carried out on formal documents of the NSW Department of School Education and the Catholic School System of the Sydney Diocese to determine the degree of congruence between selection criteria, criteria for performance appraisal and components of professional development programs for principals and the emphases in the literature and the responses of principals in this study. Contemporary literature on both leadership and counselling emphasised the importance of the leader???s/counsellor???s authenticity, empathy, respect, and effective communication skills. Principals prioritised these counselling-related attributes after a focus on students and strategic leadership but ahead of organisation, resource management, evaluating and controlling. Some ranking differences by gender, years of experience, type of school and school system were noted and discussed. Document analysis revealed that the criteria by which principals are selected, appraised and professionally developed do not include an emphasis on the counselling-related attributes which is commensurate with the importance afforded these attributes both in contemporary leadership theory and from the principals??? own view of their role. Implications of these findings for theory, practice and further research were explored and recorded.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/242685 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Yeung, Nancy Tsui Yee, Education, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Nancy Tsui Yee Yeung, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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