Date of Award
Winter 12-11-2018
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership for Learning Dissertations
Department
Educational Leadership
Committee Chair
Dr. Arvin Johnson
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Susan Banke
Second Committee Member
Dr. Camille Sutton-Brown-Fox
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative phenomenographic study was to understand how leadership coaching supported personal growth for new assistant principals. Newly appointed assistant principals from a suburban school district outside metro Atlanta, Georgia were interviewed as part of a professional development model which incorporated leadership coaching into the support mechanisms for new administrators. The professional development model, known as a leadership academy, was instituted by the school district and comprised of multiple learning opportunities of which leadership coaching was one component. This study gathered perceptions of newly appointed assistant principals regarding their perceptions of the effectiveness of leadership coaching and the leadership academy for their personal leadership growth. From a constructivist worldview, in which reality is formed from personal experiences and has multiple meanings, a phenomenographic approach was used to gather data from assistant principals in the form of interviews. Those interviews were transcribed and analyzed through both open and axial coding for variations of participant perceptions toward the effectiveness of leadership coaching. The results show strong, positive perceptions toward the effect of leadership coaching on the reduction of stress, the ability to cope with new obstacles, and the overall positive use of leadership coaching for newly appointed school leaders.
Keywords: Assistant Principals, Executive Leadership Coaching, Professional Development, Phenomenology, Phenomenography