A Study of the Leadership Practices of South Carolina Superintendents

This dissertation is a report of a mixed method study that examines the leadership practices of black and white public school superintendents in the state of South Carolina. The researcher explored any self- perceived leadership practice differences, if existent, between black and white superintendents and, if so, were the race of the superintendents, the size of the districts they served, or their years of experience in their current position are related to those differences. This study explored whether black and white superintendents drew upon different skills to perform their jobs. The researcher provided a background to the problem, a statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, and overview of the study methodology. The researcher utilized one rating instrument within this study. The participants completed the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) Self-form, developed by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2003), as the self- rating instrument. Personal interviews were scheduled with ten superintendents after collection and analysis of the quantitative data. The open response, semi-structured interviews afforded the researcher the opportunity to triangulate the data through comparisons of interview data between black and white superintendents, comparisons of the interview data, and the mean score results for the five exemplary leadership practices on the LPI. The interviews were conducted to help verify and link the qualitative and quantitative data results.