Principal Leadership Style Comparison
A comparison of the leadership styles of both cultures uses principals’
communication level as an indicator. This analysis was used to determine whether there
was a significant difference in the principals’ communication levels between the USA
and Kuwait. This will suggest a different leadership style between the two cultures.
In this analysis, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate the
null hypothesis of equal population means of principals’ communication hours per hours
of Kuwait and the USA schools (Table 5, Appendix). The tested null hypothesis and the
alternative hypothesis are as follows:
US Kuwai t H : 0
a US Kuwai t H :
The ANOVA calculates the P-value which is the area under the F-distribution
curve that corresponds to the F value of 19.81. This represents the probability that the
null hypothesis would occur by chance. Using a significance level of 5%, the null
hypothesis was rejected in favor that the alternative hypothesis since the obtained P-value
was less than the 0.05 significance level. Descriptive statistics is presented in Table 6
(Appendix) to provide more insight to the investigated data.
This data illustrate that principals in Kuwait spend less time communicating with
parents, teachers, students and the community than their counterparts in the USA. This
suggests that the principal’s in Kuwait tend to be more authoritative and less integrative
when compare with the USA principals. This finding coincides with one of the Kuwait
culture characteristics, namely high power distance. Unlike the USA culture, Kuwait
culture is characterized by high power distance in which authority and power is exercised
most of the time. This is common in Kuwait and the Middle Eastern cultures in general,
where this characteristic is observed in the work place as well as with family dynamics.
Investigate the differences and similarities in both cause/effect models of Kuwait and the USA in light of any cultural difference.