Be Well to Lead Well: A Quantitative Study of Well-Being and Leadership Self-Efficacy of School Principals

Abstract

The research within this dissertation is the first to quantitatively explore the relationship between well-being and leadership self-efficacy. This study advances leadership and positive psychology research and theory by exploring and promoting the factors and elements, strengths, and virtues that may allow individuals, school principals, leaders, and their communities to flourish. Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory provided theoretical foundations for describing leadership self-efficacy and Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model for well-being.

An online survey platform was used to distribute and collect surveys from a simple random sampling of 240 public school principals within a Midwestern state. The survey tool measured both the well-being and the leadership self-efficacy of participants. Butler and Kern’s (2016) PERMA Profiler was adopted to measure and quantify overall well-being and contributing elements of positive emotion, engagement, meaning, relationships, and accomplishment (PERMA). Hannah and Avolio’s (2013) Leader Efficacy Questionnaire (LEQ) was used to measure and quantify leadership self-efficacy. Statistical analysis of the data included one-tailed Spearman correlations and t-tests to measure the strength and significance of relationships, single sample t-tests for comparisons to existing studies, and descriptive statistics to understand the current state of leadership efficacy and well-being of the sample.

The data revealed a strong correlation between well-being and leadership self-efficacy (r_s= .607) along with numerous statistically significant correlations among PERMA elements, LEQ components, composite leadership self-efficacy, and overall well-being. Synthesis of the existing research and theory and findings from the study support the four implications for practice as prevented through the awareness, intention, and action framework. It is suggested that principals and leaders be more conscious of their well-being and through awareness, build intentionality towards being well in order to lead well. The findings suggest principals emphasize cultivating more positive and less negative emotions and leveraging strengths to enhance resilience. The researcher places self-awareness at the center of these implications and posits awareness to be the gateway to the comprehensive theory and research on well-being and leadership efficacy.