A Comparative Study of Leadership Characteristics of Virginia Regional Technical Center Principals

The purpose of this study was to identify leadership characteristics of technical school principals as perceived by technical center school principals, the superintendents, and the center's Joint Control Board of the regional technical centers of the Commonwealth of Virginia. A regional technical center principal position deals with a different administrative governing board, students from different high schools, and courses in the field of career and technical education. This study gathered and evaluated perspectives from the participating superintendents, Joint Control School Board members, and regional technical center principals to determine similarities and differences between the perceptions among these groups.

The population selected for this study was comprised of the participating superintendents, school board members, and principals from all ten K-12 public school regional technical centers in the Commonwealth of Virginia during the 2014-15 school year. The results showed that the survey respondents ranked visionary and instructional leader as the top two characteristics for regional technical center principals. The results showed that superintendents and Joint Control School Board members ranked having a background or experience in career and technical education higher than principals ranked that characteristic. Joint Control Board Members ranked having a CTE degree significantly higher than principals and superintendents. Superintendents and Joint Control Board Members rated the principal's ability to articulate an instructional vision as having a significant relation to academic success higher than principals rated that characteristic. Survey respondents rated statement ten; persuasion is the ultimate tool for a technical center principal of public education, mean responses the lowest. All three survey respondents rated statement six; personal and professional integrity, honesty, and fairness are essential leadership characteristics for the public school regional technical center principal, mean responses the highest.

Open-ended question sixteen, what other characteristics that are needed for the CTE leader of a regional technical center that have not been addressed?, revealed results that superintendents and principals indicated that personnel management was a valuable skill, that superintendents believed that building relationships with students and recruiting students along with having the ability to work with various stakeholders was important.