| Summary: | Emerging research has shown that successful leaders view their
organizations' environment in a holistic way. This wide-angle view offers school
principals the concept of school culture. The concept of school culture provides a
wider framework for understanding complex relationships and solving problems
within the school. By taking into consideration the school cultural context, school
principals will be better equipped to shape the values, beliefs and attitudes that are
prerequisites to promoting a stable and nurturing learning environment. This study
explores and seeks to illuminate the situational dynamics of leader-followership, to
disclose the genesis and development of principals' value frameworks and work
styles in the two mainstream schools in Malaysia, the ethnic Malay-majority and the
ethnic Chinese-majority school.
. Using a theoretical framework that looks into the instructional.
transformational and transactional leaderships as well as other management
behaviors, and by using the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale
(PIMRS) and Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), this study explored
principals' leadership style and management behavior of two principals in their
respective school's cultural context. The objectives of the study were: 1) to profile
and compare the distinctive characteristics of the ethnic Malay-majority school and
the ethnic Chinese-majority school; 2) to study principal's leadership style and
management behavior of the principals managing the two schools and how they
interacted with the school context; 3). to study how the teachers interpreted the
leadership approaches, culture-building behaviors and other leadership
characteristics of their principals.
This study employed the qualitative case study method to study the principals'
leadership style and management behavior of two principals using a cross-cultural
comparative approach. By prolonged engagement and close interactions with the
teachers and principals, the data collected showed how school culture and context
combined with principals' personal attributes shaped their school leadership.
Teachers' perceptions of their respective principals' leadership style and
management behavior obtained by PIMRS and MLQ were summarized and
validated. Further information was obtained through interviews with the teachers and
observations of their behaviors and activities.
The results show that there were significant differences between the
characteristics of the two mainstream schools and that there were significant
differences in the principals' leadership style and management behavior. Based on
Hofstede's five dimensions, the ethnic Malay-majority school was characterized by a
larger power distance, more collectivistic in orientation, more feminine inclined, low
uncertainty avoidance and short-term time orientation when compared to the ethnic
Chinese-majority school. Common local values that were identified were also used
to reflect the culture and values of the teachers in the two schools. Again there were
distinctive differences in these values between the two mainstream schools. The
cultural context and characteristics of the respective schools that were identified
showed that they influenced the respective principals' leadership style and
management behavior. The limitations of the research were addressed and its
implications for further study were discussed.
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