Leadership styles of Costa Rican school directives: transforming educational organizations

Abstract

The study of leadership has risen importance in the development of organizations in general, particularly in the educational context. The present investigation has the objective of analizing the styles of leadership directives of Costa Ricans schools. It is proposed the quantitive methology, with an ex post facto and transversal desing, implementing the questionnaire Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) applied to a stratified probabilistic sample of 125 school principals. The findings show a predominant transformational leadership style, followed by the transactional style, highlighting the low frequency of the laissez-faire style. It is recommended that the transformational leadership take as dynamic axis the pedagogical dimension, which characterizes the work executed in the educational organizations, consecuently, the strengthening of a leadership from the pedagogical axis to a collaborative work that favors identity process, resulting in the achievement of joint goals is substantive for the quality of the educational offer.