Values Perception and Future Educational Leaders

Abstract

This article describes a process of incorporating future school administrators’ value clusters into a university preparation program. The university's role in integrating a values dimension in school administrators’ preparation programs is elucidated. The “Principal's Reflective Experiential Preparation Program” is described, with an emphasis on the use of the “Hall Tonna Inventory of Values” to ascertain the future administrators’ value clusters as they relate to the individual's leadership classification. It is noted that this process of values and leadership articulation affords clarity regarding the future administrator's philosophical foundations as they relate to educational practice and to the determination of future career decisions. Finally, reflections are given regarding future directions to enhance values integration in administrative preparation programs; such programs are challenged to integrate the candidates’ value clusters—those that energize humans, within programmatic development.