The Predictive Roles of the Personal Variables and the Leader Attributes and Behaviors of Department Chairpersons Regarding the Outcomes of Leadership as Perceived by Department Members in Selected Jamaican Universities

Problem Leaders within the Jamaican education system have often been selected either because of their personal aspirations or their emergence. Since institutional success is integrally linked to leadership, an intentional approach to leader identification should be established in an effort to consistently yield the desired outcomes. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to identify the predictive roles of the four personal variables (Leader Gender, Formal Leadership Training, Informal Leadership Training, and Years of Service as an Educator), and the nine leader attributes and behaviors of Bass‟s Full-Range Leadership Model (Idealized-Influence Attributed, Idealized-Influence Behavior, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, Individualized Consideration, Contingent Reward, Management-by-Exception Active, Management-by- Exception Passive, and Laissez-Faire Leadership) regarding the three outcomes of leadership (Extra Effort, Effectiveness, and Satisfaction) as perceived by Department Members concerning the leadership of their Department Chairpersons in selected Jamaican universities. Such an effort, it is hoped, will identify core characteristics to be used in the process of leader identification, so that success is not achieved merely by happenstance, by the few, but by design, by the majority. Method The HLM 7 Hierarchical Linear and Nonlinear Modeling statistical program was used to analyze the data in this quantitative research. Level-one data were obtained from 148 of 795 Department Members using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Rater Form (5X-Short), and level-two data were obtained from 20 of 41 Department Chairpersons using the researcher-developed Leader Attributes and Behaviors Demographic Information (LABDI) Leader Form. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to organize the data, to provide descriptive statistics, and to cross-validate the findings of the HLM analyses. Findings The process of data analysis revealed that Inspirational Motivation, with a regression coefficient of 0.360 (SE = 0.138, t(119) = 2.602, p < 0.01); Individualized Consideration, with a regression coefficient of 0.372 (SE = 0.119, t(119) = 3.118, p < 0.01); and Management-by- Exception Passive, with a regression coefficient of -0.165 (SE = 0.083, t(119) -1.990, p < 0.05), are the best predictors of Extra Effort. Idealized-Influence Attributed, with a regression coefficient of 0.276 (SE = 0.101, t(119) = 2.745, p < 0.01); Intellectual Stimulation, with a regression coefficient of 0.183 (SE = 0.088, t(119) = 2.085, p < 0.05); and Laissez-Faire Leadership, with a regression coefficient of -0.168 (SE = 0.059, t(119) = -2.849, p < 0.01), are the best predictors of Effectiveness. Idealized-Influence Attributed, with a regression coefficient of 0.261 (SE = 0.111, t(119) = 2.362, p < 0.05); Intellectual Stimulation, with a regression coefficient of 0.324 (SE = 0.097, t(119) = 3.355, p < 0.01); and Individualized Consideration, with a regression coefficient of 0.198 (SE = 0.096, t(119) = 2.072, p < 0.05), are the best predictors of Satisfaction. In addition, none of the four personal variables was found to be a significant predictor of the three outcomes of leadership. The full model explained 71.1% of the variance in Extra Effort, 79.1% of the variance in Effectiveness, and 79.3% of the variance in Satisfaction. These findings indicate the discrediting of each of the three null hypotheses, and the partial acceptance of each of the three research hypotheses. Conclusions If the preferred outcomes of leadership (Extra Effort, Effectiveness, and Satisfaction) are to be realized, then methodologies that strategically identify aspiring, potential, and emergent leaders will need to be determined. The findings of this research indicate the necessity for the conducting of other studies on leadership in the field of education.