Principal Leadership & Student Achievement

The conducted study examined democratic/autocratic principal leadership styles for association with student achievement. To provide context to the performed research, this paper presents a review of the student achievement-principal leadership style literature. The review examines the literature in two broad categories: (1) research directly related to the autocratic/democratic dimensions of principal leadership style; and (2) research relevant to other dimensions of principal leadership style. The review ends with a series of conclusions about leadership style and student achievement formulated on the basis of the reviewed literature.

Democratic/Autocratic Leadership Style and Student Achievement

Is student achievement influenced by principals' leadership style and, if so, are there differences in student achievement depending upon whether the principal is autocratic or democratic in style? While there has not been a lot of good empirical research on this topic, there are some studies that suggest that the democratic style may have a better effect on student achievement than the autocratic style.

For example, Etheridge and Hall (1995), in their evaluation of seven Memphis City schools implementing school-based decision making, evaluated a variety of diverse outcomes of the programs over a seven year period. Data collection methods included participant observation, intervie

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of the effects of principals' leadership style on school climate and student achievement in Kentucky elementary schools. Achievement scores were found to be strongest in schools where principals used promoter styles. It was also found that school climates were more positive in schools where principals were highly involved with instruction and other matters. According to Waller, Smith and Warnock (1989), a dimension of leadership style that is associated with the autocratic/democratic continuum is the task- versus relationship-oriented style of leadership with the task orientation being similar to the autocratic method and the relationship oriented style being similar to the democratic method. According to the authors, current research has established that the difference between the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of the four leadership styles is the appropriateness of the leader's behavior to the particular situation in which it is used. With respect to the foregoing, Waller et. al (1989) state that one of the basic factors that will elevate or debilitate each of the four leadership styles is the basic task maturity of the individual or group being led with maturity being defined in terms of the capacity to set high but at
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2184
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)