Leadership and Leadership Intelligence

Abstract

In recent years, leadership training for school administrators has become equated with knowledge of or the learning of a set of hard skills or competencies and an internship period that may or may not include activities reflective of the overarching position of the principalship. What seems to be missing with increasing regularity in training programs are the skills and abilities of leaders to problem-solve difficult situations competently. And while the national exam for leadership (the PRAXIS) requires problem-solving skills, many of our leadership programs do not adequately train in this manner. Problem-solving skills, particularly those which involve interactions with other adults (teachers and parents), are critical now more than ever. An obvious and pointed reason is the mass infusion and sometimes overreliance on technology to solve problems that only sincere human interaction can resolve. The authors, in this article, refer to this skill set as leadership intelligence (LSI). The purpose of this research study was to investigate the relationship between this skill set (further defined in the ensuing article) and the rankings of school principals via their respective state ranking systems. Furthermore, the authors share statistically significant findings regarding the differences between aspiring and practicing administrators in LSI indicating that, over time, growth can be experienced in the skill set.