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A Study of the Use of Power by Middle School and High School Principals and Its Relationship to Teacher Satisfaction With Work and With Principal
This study was undertaken to determine the power bases
used by middle school and high school principals in the
Baltimore city Public schools (BCPS), and how their use of
power affects teachers' satisfaction with their work and
their principal. The three research questions posed in this
study were:
1. To what extent is there a correlation between
teacher satisfaction with work and supervisor, and the
teacher's perceived classification of his/her principal's
use of power?
2. To what extent is there congruence between the
principal's self-perception of his/her use of power and the
teacher's perception of the principal's use of power?
3. Are there differences in the middle school and
high school principals' uses of power based on their
teachers' perceived classifications?
The subjects for this study were middle school
principals, middle school teachers, high school principals,
and high school teachers in the BCPS. The middle school and
high school principals completed the Power Perception
Profile: Perception of Self (PPPS). The middle school and
high school teachers completed the Power Perception Profile:
Perception of Other (PPPO) and the Cornell Job Description
Index (JDI). Of the 41 principals, 24 principals
volunteered to participate. The middle school and high
school tenured teachers numbered 922. Of the 922 tenured
teachers, 387 tenured teachers returned the instrument.
The seven power bases measured by the PPPS and the PPPO
were (a) coercive power, (b) connection power, (c)
information power, (d) expert power, (e) legitimate power,
(f) referent power, and (g) reward power. The subtests used
to measure the teachers' level of satisfaction were (a)
Supervision, and (b) Work on Present Job.
Based on the findings of this study, teacher
dissatisfaction with principal or with work is associated
with the principal's use of coercive power, connection
power, and reward power. The principal's use of information power did not appear to affect teacher satisfaction with
work or supervisor . The relationship between the
principal's use of legitimate power and teacher satisfaction
with work and supervisor was inconclusive. The principal 's
use of expert power and referent power is associated with
teacher satisfaction with work and with principal.
In addition, the findings indicated that the middle
school principals' perceptions of their uses of power were
not congruent with their teachers' perceptions. The high
school principals' perceptions of their uses of power were
congruent with the high school teachers' perceptions, with
the exception of connection power .
An analysis of variance was done between the middle
school teachers' ratings of the middle school principals'
power styles and the high school teachers' ratings of the
high school principals' power styles to determine if there
were differences in the middle school and high school
principals' uses of power. The results of the analyses
indicated that the principals fell into three groups. The
three groups were (a) positional power, (b) personal power,
and (c) a combination of personal and positional power. The
middle school principals used more positional power bases
than personal power bases to induce compliance from or to
influence their teachers. The high school principals used a
combination of personal and positional power bases to induce
compliance from or to influence their teachers.
The findings from this study, based on the teachers' perceptions, indicate that middle school principals use (a)
coercion, (b) their legitimate authority, and (c) the
rewards that are available to them to induce compliance from
or to influence their teachers. They use less referent
power and expert power. The high school principals use more
referent power and expert power than coercive power or
reward power to induce compliance from or to influence their
teachers