William Greenfield

Portland State University | PSU

The purpose of this article is to report the testing of hypotheses about principal vision generated from Blumberg and Greenfield’s (1986) qualitative studies of effective principals. Relationships among teachers’ views of their principals’ vision, teachers’ sense of autonomy, and the robustness of the principal role are examined and discussed.

Purpose – The paper shares observations on each article in this volume, concluding that educational administration has continued to evolve in the application of organizational theory to schools and universities. A very important but recent focus of several studies reviewed is the connections they illustrate between organizational characteristics an...

The genesis of the moral leadership concept in educational administration and examples of studies exploring this idea during the 1979-2003 period are discussed. The author recommends more contextually sensitive descriptive studies with a focus on the social relations among school leaders and others, giving particular attention, in a phenomenologica...

This essay discusses contributions to the understanding of the concept of "moral leadership" and makes suggestions about the direction inquiry might take in the future. A general introduction is followed by scholars' concerns regarding leadership circa 1979. A selective summary of the key ideas and foci follows of what the writer believes are among...

This study provides empirical data about the role and work context of the principal in public and private secondary schools in Lebanon. The study focused on questionnaires, interviews, and observations of 33 principals in Lebanon. The researchers wished to examine the principals' perspectives on their roles, responsibilities and the way the role is...

Three conditions distinguish the work of school administrators from that of their colleagues in nonschool contexts: the uniquely moral character of schools; a highly educated, autonomous, and permanent workforce; and regular and unpredictable threats to organizational stability. The resultant demand environment requires school administrators to rel...

Drawing on Blumberg and Greenfield's studies of effective principals, offers an operational definition of school vision, based on teachers' perceptions of that vision. The instrument developed consists of three subscales: (1) vision exchange – the principal's effectiveness in exchanging his/her vision with the school community; (2) vision internali...

Given the moral nature of public schools and the numerous moral dilemmas faced by school administrators, training in ethics should be included in administrator preparation curricula. After discussing the public school as a moral institution, this document explains normative ethics and outlines the differences between moral and nonmoral judgments. T...

Recognizing the importance of leadership in effective school administration, this document begins by discussing leadership as defined by Etzioni (1975), including ideas such as personal influence; positional power; the difference between instrumental and expressive leadership; and organizational type as defined by the dominant means of control in t...

Educators have a moral obli gation to serve the interests of students, to make well- being the focus of the schoo To do this, principals can adopt five standards of goo practice that not only make them more effective adminis trators, but also improve faculty performance.

Analyzes the assistant principalship in terms of socialization, the enculturation process, and the actual work activity of assistant principals. Training and work of assistant principals should be restructured to avoid a trend toward development of a custodial, non-risk taking, noninstructional leader orientation. (PS)

This book offers the critical perspectives of 20 educators on some of the issues associated with facilitating instructional leadership, emphasizing the complex interplay between the character of schools as work settings, the orientations of principals and teachers toward their work, and the challenges of leading and improving schools at the end of...

This report examines the function of experience in the role of vice-principal as preparation for the school principalship, proposing that a dysfunctional socialization outcome of this career entry pattern is the development of a role orientation that emphasizes managing rather than leading the school. The authors differentiate these two dimensions...

Various sources are cited indicating that the actual role of educational administrators, especially school principals, is largely one of communicating with teachers, students, supervisors, parents, and others and monitoring, reviewing, and assessing what is occurring in the school work setting. Suggested as the cornerstones of effective school admi...

Unstructured interviews conducted in 1977 with eight respected elementary and secondary school principals revealed their conceptions of the principal's role and of the skills and activities that had gone into their efforts to fill that role. The eight principals are identified in terms of their outstanding characteristics, as revealed through analy...

Reviews the literature on assistant principals. Concludes that from a sociological perspective, the existing knowledge base has contributed little to an understanding of the social character of the school setting, the internal and external careers of administrators, and problems associated with training and developing professional administrators. P...

Presents a strategy for reconceptualizing the role of the high school assistant principal in order to: (1) make the job more professionally satisfying; (2) better prepare assistants for subsequent responsibilities as principals; and (3) develop a capacity for problem-solving activities, pursued cooperatively by teachers and administrators, to impro...

Introduces special issue on the role of the assistant principal. Briefly reviews the contents of a series of articles which examines research on assistant principals, describes their experiences and major functions, and discusses their potential contributions to managing and improving instruction. (KH)

The study of administrator preparation programs, processes, and associated outcomes has proceeded in a theoretical vacuum, and has focused primarily on technical knowledge and skill associated with the school administrator's role. This article presents a theoretical framework for the study of preparation practices and outcomes, and discusses the mo...

Partial results are reported from a longitudinal study that investigated role learning among teachers seeking and obtaining principalships or assistant principalships. Data were obtained from indepth interviews with 14 administrative candidates. A brief theoretical discussion classifies new administrators' job behavior according to three responses...

Reviews existing research regarding the role of the department head and the function of the department within the school structure. Conceptualizes the head's role as one of providing leadership aimed at developing and implementing practices and policies intended to make the department's instructional program more effective. Offers guidelines for ef...

This document includes a research review and commentary on the role, career, and work of assistant principals; an overview of theories and concepts useful to studying the administrative career in education; and propositions regarding professional training practices and personnel policies in education. Results of a review of the research on the assi...

The author presents a view of the self-development, work, and nonwork elements shaping the career of one upwardly mobile educator with the intention of calling attention to the multifaceted character of the forces influencing teachers and administrators at work.

Principals' behaviors and the reasons for and consequences of their behavior are the focuses of this review of major published empirical research on public school principals. Appended to the paper is a 70-page bibliography of doctoral dissertations, conference papers, and other writings on the principalship that were not reviewed. The author first...

As students of the careers of educators, these authors present the results of a study that looked in depth into what teachers say about their role and responsibilities. What they learned will help principals work with teachers to improve schools.

Postulates that effective performance is part of a cyclical process. First, teacher effort overcomes job-related stressors and achieves valued outcomes and rewards as determined by teacher perception of student needs. This success increases teacher satisfaction, involvement, and motivation. These in turn increase teacher effort and lead to more eff...

Can you define trust? Vague responses to this question prompted the authors to undertake a study to determine how teachers view trust. Their results, while reducing some of the ambiguity attached to the word, indicate that more research is required.

This two-part paper reports the initial results of a longitudinal study of the organizational socialization of educational administrators. The data analyzed in Part One are ordered using the construct, GASing (Getting the Attention of Superiors), and the related concepts of anticipatory socialization and interpersonal orientation. Data analyzed in...

Part One of this initial report of a longitudinal study of the organizational socialization of educational administrators offered an analysis of data ordered by the GASing construct and the two related concepts of anticipatory socialization and interpersonal orientation. The data to be analyzed here are ordered using the concepts of situational adj...

If educational administration preparation programs are to become more effective, basic premises need changing. Behavioral and social science knowledge must be deliberately included in the design, structure, and utilization of training programs drawing on the theoretical and empirical literature of socialization of adults in complex organizations. T...