An Examination of the Characteristic, Resilience, and Leadership Practices in Public School Elementary Principals

The purpose of this study was to identify relationships among the dimensions of resilience, leadership practices, and individual demographics of elementary school principals in West Virginia. The author was looking for skills that could be identified and enhanced to improve the recruitment and retention of public school leaders. Many school systems report problems recruiting effective school leaders, and many school leaders report feeling discouraged and overwhelmed by the increasing demands to implement changes and improvements in schools. This study examined the characteristic resilience, the capacity to change and return to a state of equilibrium comparing those characteristics with various leadership practices. This quantitative study surveyed 88 elementary school principals to collect data on the dimensions of resilience, leadership practices, and demographic information. The author administered two online questionnaires, the Personal Resilience Questionnaire (PRQ) (1993) developed by Organizational Development Resources (ODR, Inc.); the Leadership Profile Inventory developed by Kouzes and Posner (Kouzes & Posner, 2002); and the demographic variables. The study yielded a number of positive correlations among the individual items on the PRQ and the LPI. A small number of demographic characteristics were correlated with the resilience dimensions and the leadership practices. The researcher recommended a number of areas for further study in the area of resilience in school leaders including using the information in evaluations and staff development. The study of resilience and leaders\u27 responses to change could enhance teaching and learning in public schools