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The survey included space for written comments. A. Rainey (personal communication, September 1, 2009) wrote, “This was an excellent experience. I am excited about the quality of leaders that will be working in our district as a result of this new preparation program.” Others were equally encouraging. Some offered suggestions related to improving the orientation and identifying tasks to satisfy resident performance requirements.
1=unacceptable, 2=acceptable, 3=area of strength, improvement needed, 4=area of strength, no improvement needed, 5=not applicable
| Statement | Mean Score |
| 1. My orientation session to the program was helpful. I left the meeting at USA with a reasonably clear idea of my responsibility as a mentor. | 3.87 |
| 2. Program requirements (knowledge and ability statements) were clear. | 3.96 |
| 3. I met with my resident often enough to evaluate his/her performance while he/she was assigned to my school. | 3.96 |
| 4. I was satisfied with the frequency of visits to my school by the USA program supervisor. | 3.91 |
| 5. The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) seems to be a helpful formative assessment of Residency performance. | 3.81 |
| 6. My assessment of the residency? | 3.79 |
USA’s redesigned leadership program is unique, with the semester-long residency being its distinguishing trait. All other state post-secondary institutions opted for the minimum of 10 consecutive days in schools to define their internship.
Residents’ leadership skills were evaluated with The Leadership Practices Inventory® (LPI), a series of on-line surveys that includes a self-assessment, a manager/principal evaluation, and 360 degree feedback from one to as many as five observers. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner created the LPI in 2003 to “dispel two popular myths about leadership: First, that leadership is an innate quality people are born with, and second, that only a select few can lead successfully” (p. 3). Instead, the authors “concentrated on people in middle management whose daily lives were on the front lines, leading community and school projects, managing departments, running programs, starting small businesses, opening new sales territories, and expanding product lines” (p.3).
Kouzes and Posner identified Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® (Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart) to support their belief that “leadership has absolutely nothing to do with your position or your status and everything to do with your behavior . “Leadership is an observable set of skills and abilities that both experienced and novice leaders can use to turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes” (p. 3-4).
Each resident completed the LPI once during the first two weeks of the semester and again near its conclusion. Program faculty used LPI results to guide formative discussions with residents about their leadership skills and performance during the semester. Interestingly, first-administration LPI results revealed that the mean score for 15 of 16 residents was lower on the 30-item, Likert-type scale used to assess each of the Five Practices than either their mentors’ or observers’ mean scores. Further, residents believed that their abilities in all five practices diminished during the term; mentor principals and observers, however, noted improvement during the same period of time for each resident in all of the practices except Encourage the Heart.
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