School principals as leaders: Pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspective

Scholars have highlighted that the existing school leadership models are incomplete and the relevant research is dominated by the principals’ perspectives. This study explores the pre-service and in-service teachers’ views about what they want and expect of the school principals as leaders to willingly follow them. The sample consisted of 36 teachers purposefully recruited. Written texts, where the participants were asked to spontaneously write down their thoughts, were used as a research tool; and content analysis was used as a research method. The findings overall indicated that the ideal school leader from the teachers’ perspectives has mostly particular leadership skills, in a much lesser extent has both specific personality traits and enduring goals to pursue, while specific necessary qualifications are considered as the least desirable. These findings are discussed in the context of the broad literature on leadership and in relation to the proposed leadership models.