Principal Leadership Styles in an Era of Accountability

The purpose of this descriptive, quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional study was to determine the self-perceived leadership style of principals in an era of accountability. The research instrument was the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire with added demographic questions. In addition to the determination of the self-perceived principal leadership style, the intention of this study was to determine the possible relationship of demographic variables such as principal gender, experience, ethnicity, school type, school grade, and school socioeconomic status determined by Title I on leadership styles. The participants of the study were principals from three large school districts in the state of Florida. The dependent variable was the principal leadership style categorized on the MLQ as transactional, transformational, or laissez-faire. The MLQ also determined the use of behaviors categorized as laissez-faire, authoritative, or participative. The independent variables were the demographic variables, principal gender, ethnicity, years of experience as a school principal, school type, school grade, and school socioeconomic status defined by Title I.