The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between teacher and
administrator perceptions regarding leadership pharacteristics and practices and their
perceptions of success in fulfilling the school’s mission.
In this integrative approach study, 221 teachers and 16 administrators (representing
15 schools) chose to participate by completing the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and
the School Mission Survey (SMS). Qualitatively, the instruments used included the School
Mission Survey’s open-ended questions, a Self-Anchoring Scale activity, and an interview
protocol probing 9 open-ended questions with 4 administrators and 12 teachers.
The bivariate correlation on each instrument indicated a strong to significant
relationship between most of the specified items comprising both instruments ( *p< .05, two
tailed; ** p < .01, two tailed). Reliability testing of the instruments indicated that the overall
coefficient alphas were excellent. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the School
Mission Survey to extract the underlying constructs of that instrument. Previous research
and analyses were accepted as verification of the underlying factors of the LPI. The
reliability analysis performed on the SMS factors indicated that the alphas were satisfactory.