The Relationship of Principals' Leadership Practices and Their Impact on Teacher Attrition and Retention

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between principle leadership practices and the teachers’ intent to remain in the profession for the next five years or to return to urban school district next year.

METHODOLOGY
The target population consisted of full-time middle school teachers within an urban Georgia public school district during the 2009-2010 school year. There were new and veteran teachers in three selected middle schools with the lowest teacher turnover rate (N=117). Participants completed the Leadership Practices Inventory-Observer, with an 85 percent response rate. The typical teacher was 42 years or older (23%), with 11 or more years of work experience (45%), female (58%), and Black (89%). In this sample, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were: 0.86 Model, 0.87 Inspire, 0.80 Challenge, 0.86 Enable, and 0.86 Encourage.

KEY FINDINGS
The most frequent leadership practice reported by teachers of their principals was Challenge, followed by Inspire and Enable, and then Encourage and Model. There was no statically significant relationship between the five leadership practices and the demographic variables, including age, gender, ethnicity, and teachers’ years of experience. The five leadership practices did not account for any significant amount of variance in teachers’ retention to remain in the profession for the next five years or to return to the urban school district.