Invitational Leadership Research Articles

The Investigation of a Middle School Teacher Preparatory Program Through the Lens of Invitational Leadership

Using the principles and domains of invitational leadership identified by Purkey and Novak (2016), the researchers focused specifically on the inclusion of caring, respect, trust, optimism, and intentionality throughout the domains of people, places, policies, programs, and processes for creating an inviting culture in a teacher preparatory program. The results concluded the program was effective at including many of the principles through the domains of invitational leadership by role modeling, building relationships within the community of learners, and offering collaborative opportunities to the students. However, often this use was unintentionally inviting indicating that there was a need to further study invitational leadership theory to implement it effectively.

Invitational Leadership

The quality of adult relationships within a school has more to do withthe quality and character of the school and with the accomplishmentsof students than any other factor. (Barth, 1990, p.163)This study focused on invitational practices of principals and thecorrelation between a principal’s inviting behaviors and teachers’ perceptions.It was hypothesized that there was a positive correlation betweena principal’s actions and teacher affective outcomes such as feelingsof trust, respect, job satisfaction, and perceived principaleffectiveness. The principal-teacher relationship was studied in an effortto elucidate the importance of positive human interaction in educationalsettings.A thorough review of the literature on the subject of InvitationalEducation from 1970 through 1991 revealed that little had been writtenon the application of Invitational Theory to administrative practices.Although Purkey and Warters (1986), Common (1983, 1984, 1985),Chambers (1983), and Cogar (1987) addressed the subject and offeredsuggestions for the application of Invitational Theory to the administrationof schools, Invitational Leadership was not a primary focus of thefounders and followers of Invitational Education.

Invitational Leadership

This study investigated the relationship between professionally andpersonally inviting behaviors of high school principals in the state ofMississippi and: (a) Teacher Job Satisfaction, (b) Principal Effectiveness,(c) Principal as an Agent of School Improvement, and (d)Principal’s Invitational Quotient, and (e) The Computed AccreditationPerformance Index of their respective school district. The foundationfor this study evolved as an extension of earlier research (Asbill, 1994)that examined the value of Invitational Education Theory (IET) as aworkable theory for educational leaders in the school setting.

Examination of the Effectiveness of Male and Female Educational Leaders

The purpose of this inquiry was to examine the effectiveness of male and female educationalleaders who made use of the invitational leadership style of leadership in their k-12 schoolsettings. Study participants consisted of 14 principals (7 female and 7 male) and 164 teachers.While quantitative findings revealed a statistically significant difference between the usages ofinvitational leadership qualities in effective schools versus less effective schools, there were nodifferences based on gender. Follow-up interviews with teachers and principals established thatteachers believed that the invitational qualities of respect and trust were the most influentialleadership qualities, while principals viewed trust as the predominant influencing factor.

Retaining Teachers: Intentional Invitational Action and Social Justice Leadership as Driving Forces

Social justice challenges and teacher retention challenges create crises in urban school districts across the United States. Moreover, despite literature linking principal leadership with school ethos known is little as to how the use of an invitational leadership style with a social justice orientation has a connection to the retention of teachers in urban settings. This study used a qualitative case study survey design conducted at two urban school district settings, one in the Western United States and the other in the Midwest. The analysis found a connection between the principal using an invitational leadership style, and the presence of a strong social orientation that helped to retain teachers. These findings present implications for scholars and practitioners.

Creating an Effective Educational Environment for Adult Learners: A Qualitative, Multi-Case Study of Off-Campus Center Administrator’s Use of Invitational Leadership

This study was designed to examine off-campus centers and their administrators in creating an effective learning environment for adult learners using a new innovative leadership theory, invitational, which is a holistic approach that nurtures the belief everyone is intrinsically motivated and it is the leaders’ responsibility to unleash their true potential (Purkey & Siegel, 2003). Data analysis revealed three emerging themes: 1) Passionate Partnership, 2) Motivational Inspiration and 3) Organic Nous of Affinity. Implications of the study concluded preparatory programs should incorporate the aspects of optimism and intentionality as essential leadership characteristics when training leaders, and adult market-driven educational needs should drive programs and services offered at an off-campus center.

Transforming Education through School-community Partnerships: Lessons from Four Rural Early Childhood Development Schools in Zimbabwe

This article presents and discusses the findings of a multi-case study that was conducted in four remote rural early childhood development (ECD) schools located in the Chiredzi district, in Masvingo province, Zimbabwe. The article explored how school heads enhanced resources mobilisation in remote rural ECD schools through school-community partnerships in order to improve teaching and learning conditions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the school heads, deputy heads and teachers in charge. Document reviews and observations were also used to augment data from interviews. Invitational leadership was used as an analytic tool for the study. The findings suggest that the school heads succeeded to some degree in bringing parents and various stakeholders to the ECD schools to deal with the challenges facing them. Various strategies were used including tapping into local knowledge to ensure that parents who could afford to pay fees managed to do so.

Are Principals Prepared to Lead in Schools with Diverse Student Populations Using Invitational Leadership?

<p><em>This inquiry sought to create meaning via an invitational leadership lens about how principals are prepared to lead in schools with diverse student populations. Data revealed principals’ perceptions about preparation related to invitational leadership emphasized contradictions between principals’ inviting-oriented rhetoric and their underlying beliefs regarding diverse student populations. Implications include opportunities that principal preparation programs include invitational leadership at the forefront of social justice leadership, as they prepare leaders working with diverse student populations.</em></p>

The relationship between school leadership and professional learning communities in Thai basic education schools

This study aimed to explore the role of essential leadership styles of school principals in encouraging teachers’ participation in professional learning communities (PLCs) in basic education schools in northeastern Thailand. It aimed to identify the nine leadership styles practiced by school principals and teachers’ participation in PLCs, and to examine the relationship between them, utilizing a quantitative survey design with a questionnaire instrument that was returned by 731 respondents out of 750 distributed. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the perceived level of all variables and inferential statistics, applying Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression to examine the relationships between the variables. The findings indicate that school principals are highly involved in practicing the nine leadership styles and teachers were also greatly participating in PLCs. Teachers’ participation in PLCs was significantly related to the nine leadership styles at significance level of 0.05. The results also show that there were four significant predictors, namely learning, transformational, collaborative, and invitational leadership, which together contributed 55.6 % of the variance in teachers’ participation in PLCs. These findings contribute significantly to knowledge by proposing essential leadership styles that guide school principals in promoting teachers’ participation in PLCs, which in turn will improve students’ learning.

Challenges to the Introduction of an Alternative Leadership Style: A School Principal’s Journey in the Introduction of an ‘Ubuntu Leadership Model’

In various bids to improve the culture of learning and teaching in South African schools there have been numerous calls to transform school management and leadership. Recent research is proving that it is effective school managers who entrench the culture of achievement in their organizations. Shared leadership, participative leadership, invitational leadership are some of the terms tossed around and believed to have ‘silver bullet’ effect in underperforming schools with managerial problems. This article is based on a qualitative study. It explores challenges encountered by a school principal who desired to turn around a dysfunctional school into being more effective. She introduced ubuntu strategies in her leadership style. Ubuntu is defined as an African philosophy which magnifies group solidarity. It is based on African values that emphasize interdependence of group members. Yet even with such noble qualities embraced in this philosophy, the principal discovered that resistance arose from employees. She realized that there was a need to ensure that sometimes employees need to be assisted through a number of professional maturity levels to accomplish certain levels of professionalism. Without these levels of professional maturity, philosophies that are inherently dynamic, could fail in the hands of professionally immature staff. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1738

Teacher Collaboration and Invitational Leadership in a South African Primary School

The focus on schools as communities of learning for teachers has prompted professionals to investigate the role of professional learning within a school context. This is an attempt to investigate the voice of the principal regarding the implementation of teacher collaboration in his or her school, and to determine how teacher collaboration is aligned with assumptions of invitational education (IE). A qualitative method of inquiry was employed to illuminate the experiences of a particular primary school principal in his endeavors to create and maintain a collaborative learning environment among teachers in an inviting school in South Africa. Data were analyzed using the four assumptions of IE, namely, respect, trust, optimism, and intentionality. From the findings, it was clear that the implementation of teacher collaboration in the school was aligned with the four assumptions of IE. This study provides an appropriate basis for developing such a collaborative teacher community, thus improving teacher and student learning. However, because school contexts have a powerful effect on teacher collaboration, it is important to contextualize teacher collaboration according to schools’ particular needs and challenges.

Examining the Leadership of Off-Campus Center Administrators Through the Lens of Invitational Leadership

This qualitative, multicase study was designed to examine off-campus centers and their administrators in creating an effective learning environment for adult learners. The administrators were analyzed through the invitational leadership theory, which is a holistic approach that nurtures the belief that everyone is intrinsically motivated and that it is the leaders’ responsibility to unleash individuals’ true potential. This leadership theory has not been utilized within the realm of off-campus centers. Data revealed three themes: (a) intense collaboration, (b) motivational influence, and (c) inherited sense of kinship. Implications of the study concluded that preparatory programs should incorporate the aspects of optimism and intentionality as essential leadership characteristics when training leaders and also that adult market-driven educational needs should drive programs and services offered at an off-campus center.

School-community integration for school change: A case study of a rural secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal

This paper presents and discusses the findings of a case study research that was conducted in a secondary school located in a rural community in the north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. The value of integrating schools and their communities, where they are located, has been highlighted in literature. Various studies have consistently showed that a metaphorical fence exists between schools and communities in which they are located. Interviews were conducted with the principal, heads of departments, teachers and a group of parents. The findings indicate that the school has successfully implemented development plans using various strategies. Through participative and invitational leadership approaches, the principal managed to solicit buy-in of all stakeholders within and outside the school.

An Educational Life and Legacy: Living and Leading Invitationally in Northern Ireland

Exploring the influence of a theory on practice reveals the applicability of educational leadership theory in contemporary schools. Invitational leadership suggests a theory of practice which encourages leaders to lead from a caring core, trust and respect others, be optimistic about the future and do so intentionally. While this approach to leadership may appear incongruent with the reality of education in sectarian Northern Ireland, this paper explores the educational life and invitational leadership of a veteran school principal in Belfast who committed to living and leading invitationally. Through stories, experiences, and reflections; invitational leadership theory is revealed as a theory of practice which has made an immense impact on a school community in East Belfast and should perhaps be more widely considered by scholars and educational leaders.

The Year of Living Invitationally: Reflections of a First Year Principal

This paper’s autoethnographic approach to the study of school leadership is intended to explore the tensions between theory and practice as I straddle this divide as a practicing school principal and academic. While the congruence between theoretical concepts and professional application may not always appear obvious, reflections on my application of the theory of invitational leadership in my first year at the helm of a 400 student elementary school highlights the importance of this connection as theory influences practice and practice, in turn, influences theory.

<img src="http://openjournals.net/files/pics/CEU.gif"/> Challenging the ‘Four Corner Press’ as framework for invitational leadership in South African schools

Orientation: Invitational leadership (IL) is consistent with current leadership trends and, because South African schools are in need of sound leadership, it is necessary to have a framework that can guide principals to act in accordance with the expectations of their educators.Research purpose: This study challenges the internationally accepted ‘Four Corner Press’ of Purkey and Novak (1984) as a framework for IL in the South African school context.Motivation for the study: IL appears to be a comprehensive model for successful school leadership. This necessitated an investigation to determine whether the ‘Four Corner Press’ reflects the expectations of teachers and, if so, whether it could serve as a valuable leadership tool.Research design, approach and method: A questionnaire containing 31 Likert-scale items, underpinned by the principles of IL, was disseminated to 600 educators conveniently drawn from the population of 88 828 teachers in Free State and Eastern Cape schools.Main findings: The data obtained from the survey enabled the researchers to perform a factor analysis, which revealed that South African educators’ expectations of leadership aligned with the ‘Four Corner Press’.Managerial implications: The ‘Four Corner Press’ can be used as a plausible framework for IL in South African schools, which has implications for the development and training of principals.Contribution/value-add: The ‘Four Corner Press’ can be regarded as a reliable prototype of IL expectations within the South African context, which contributes to extending the body of knowledge of education leadership in South Africa.

A profile of effective leadership in some South African high-poverty schools

The struggle of high-poverty schools for survival is well documented. Some have overcome poverty-related odds and performed exceptionally well, prompting the following research question: What elements constitute a profile of effective leadership in high-poverty schools? Investigations conducted at six successful high-poverty schools revealed the contribution of invitational leadership to this success. I look at the personal traits and capabilities of effective leaders in high-poverty schools, as presented in a leadership profile. Keywords : invitational leadership; poverty in South Africa; South African high-poverty school South African Journal of Education Vol. 28 (1) 2008: pp. 1-18

Invitational Leadership: A Model for the Future

This article explores the desire of the author to find appropriate frameworks and processes for individuals and companies to think strategically and explore models of leadership. He is concerned to use corporate models in developing such strategies in the church context generally and the youth ministry context specifically.

Leadership processes in alternative organizations: Invitational and dramaturgical leadership

In contrast to traditional bureaucracies, alternative organizations offer sites in which leadership focuses on opposing tensions between dualities such as individual‐collective, power over‐power with, inequality‐equality, and autonomy‐interdependence. We present two case studies of leadership in a food cooperative and a quilting guild, in which leaders and members construct processual themes and practices that can be captured by images of invitation and of dramaturgical foregrounding‐backgrounding. These images are coherent enough to enable performance of varied democratic practices but are flexible enough to allow for dialectic tensions. This flexibility enables the cooperative and guild organizations to remain true to their participatory values despite external and internal changes.

Self-assessment questionnaire for RDs

<h2>Abstract</h2> This article reports usual modes of thinking and behavior as measyred by the Life Styles Inventory—Level 1, Self-Description (LSI—Level 1), which was completed by 893 dietitians who attended at least one invitational leadership seminar during 1986 through 1989. The LSI—Level 1 measures 12 lifestyles, both positive and negative, and there is a score for each style. On a scale of 1 to 40, mean scores of the study sample were highest for Affiliative (32.0), Humanistic-Helpful (31.6), Achievement (31.1), and Self Actualize (28.8) styles. These are positive styles that characterize creative thinkers who have been described as good leaders: confident and energetic with balanced concern for both tasks and people. When mean scores of the study sample were plotted on a scaled circumplex to give a visual profile of the scores, the Dependent and Self Actualize styles were dominant; the study sample means were above the 75th percentile of the general population sample. Dependency is described as a self-defeating style characterized by insecurity, indecision, meekness, and acquiescence. <i>ξ</i>₂ Analysis showed that study respondents who had high scores in positive styles were significantly more likely to hold graduate degrees, publish articles, conduct research, hold offices, initiate projects, and serve as mentors. High scores in self-defeating styles were associated with the bachelor's degree level and less involvement in research and continuing education programs. These results indicate that many dietitians possess attributes associated with strong leadership skills; nevertheless, a substantial number reported self-defeating, dependent behaviors. Action plans to foster development of leadership skills and to design and conduct further research on the topic are suggested.