The emerging role of the principal as manager as it relates to the new philosophies and construction of teacher empowerment

With the declining interest among college students toward preparation for occupations in the field of education, educational policy makers look toward establishing practices which will more adequately professionalize teaching. It is considered that empowerment will attract neophytes to the profession and also provide a challenge to the most able veterans to remain in the field. This study investigated the behaviors of a number of principals to determine if, in reality, these principals are utilizing behaviors which truly foster meaningful (being of great consequence) teacher empowerment in consequential decision-making situations (those which impact the quality of life in the school). The population surveyed includes all of the three hundred eighty-one principals working in the Southeast Educational Region of Massachusetts with two-hundred eight responding. Quantitative methodology was employed. This author constructed a questionnaire and the forced choice method was used to determine the extent to which principals employ behaviors which foster the creation or development of teacher empowerment. Personal and background information, along with the measure of degree of use of the identified behaviors which were gathered through the choice and comment survey items, were marginally tabulated to determine the manner in which the population distributes itself on the response alternatives for each of the items. Frequency and degree of behavior use, along with correlation of gender and levels of schools were analyzed. Through the construction of the questionnaire the specific behaviors used by principals in daily decision-making activities were identified. The response choices of usually, sometimes, and usually not, were utilized to identify the degree to which the activities are implemented by the administrators. A comment section on the questionnaire provided information which expanded and clarified the objective responses. Principals reported the highest percentages in areas where middle level empowerment behaviors existed on the continuum. Repeatedly, teachers have been most significantly included in decision-making activities in which the principal participates as a partner. This finding reflects the need of these principals to exert some degree of control over situations in their building. Principal behaviors of this type are an improvement over the autocratic approach but trust must develop between the parties before true teacher empowerment can exist