Novice Principals: Their Needs, Perceptions, and Beliefs about Leadership

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation research is to determine what leadership behaviors novice principals enact and what steps they talked about taking to build a school community of trust. Because establishing trust is important to a novice principal’s ability to lead a school, it is vital that we understand how they go about this work. This is a qualitative study where I interviewed six novice principals who had fewer than five months in their first principal position. I conducted interviews of no longer than 75 minutes to ask about their needs, perceptions and beliefs about leadership, and what they do to build trust, establish leadership styles, and find their formal and informal leaders who could assist them in the important work of instructional leadership. Key findings included: listening to and learning from the teachers; finding the experts on campus, especially for curriculum and pedagogy with which they may not be familiar; understanding that they have a change in mindset in front of them; and finally, providing advice and ideas for pre-service and novice principals. The implications of this study are that novice principals need time and support to create an atmosphere of trust at their sites; they need to get into the school to listen and learn, discover their formal and informal leaders and assign tasks based on their expertise; and lastly, novice principals need training in working with their people and mentorship from proven effective principals. It is hoped that with this study, school districts might be able to evaluate any existing induction or mentor programs for novice principals and assign appropriate mentors to help them through their first few years in this highly stressful and demanding job.