Leading through Laughter: Humor and Perceived Effectiveness of P-12 Principals

Location

Room 2905 A

Session Format

Paper Presentation

Research Area Topic:

Education & Learning - Teaching, Learning & Human Development

Abstract

The field of leadership has yielded boundless research studies across disciplines, with a plethora in the business and political realms. The medical field and other social science have also joined the ranks, with education now entering the landscape. Educational leadership is a burgeoning field of research, but very little has been studied regarding the impact of humor and educational leadership.

This presentation will discuss relationships found to exist between the humor style and the perceived effectiveness of school principals, the leadership style and the perceived effectiveness of school principal, and the implied relationships between and among subtypes of humor and perceived effectiveness with subtypes of leadership style. The study was conducted for dissertation and accepted in December, 2015. Data were collected on each variable using established survey instruments: perceived effectiveness was measured on a Likert scale rating; leadership style was assessed by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio & Bass, 2004); and, humor style by a modified version of the Humor Style Questionnaire (Martin et al., 2003). Opportunity for comments (optional) was also provided. Participants were teachers in a regional area in the southeast United States; the total number of valid participants was 164.

Findings indicated that high ratings of perceived effectiveness by the rated principal were positively related to transformational leadership and also demonstrated a positive correlation to two specific humor styles—affiliative and self-enhancing. In addition, transformational leadership style and affiliative/self-enhancing humor styles were shown to have significant positive correlations. These findings are crucial to the educational leadership field as it seeks to better understand the aspects of what makes principals most effective in the ever-changing P-12 educational landscape

Keywords

Leadership, Leadership styles, Humor, Humor styles, Transformational leadership, Principal leadership, Principal effectiveness, Principal humor styles

Presentation Type and Release Option

Presentation (Open Access)

Start Date

4-24-2015 1:30 PM

End Date

4-24-2015 2:30 PM

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 24th, 1:30 PM Apr 24th, 2:30 PM

Leading through Laughter: Humor and Perceived Effectiveness of P-12 Principals

Room 2905 A

The field of leadership has yielded boundless research studies across disciplines, with a plethora in the business and political realms. The medical field and other social science have also joined the ranks, with education now entering the landscape. Educational leadership is a burgeoning field of research, but very little has been studied regarding the impact of humor and educational leadership.

This presentation will discuss relationships found to exist between the humor style and the perceived effectiveness of school principals, the leadership style and the perceived effectiveness of school principal, and the implied relationships between and among subtypes of humor and perceived effectiveness with subtypes of leadership style. The study was conducted for dissertation and accepted in December, 2015. Data were collected on each variable using established survey instruments: perceived effectiveness was measured on a Likert scale rating; leadership style was assessed by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio & Bass, 2004); and, humor style by a modified version of the Humor Style Questionnaire (Martin et al., 2003). Opportunity for comments (optional) was also provided. Participants were teachers in a regional area in the southeast United States; the total number of valid participants was 164.

Findings indicated that high ratings of perceived effectiveness by the rated principal were positively related to transformational leadership and also demonstrated a positive correlation to two specific humor styles—affiliative and self-enhancing. In addition, transformational leadership style and affiliative/self-enhancing humor styles were shown to have significant positive correlations. These findings are crucial to the educational leadership field as it seeks to better understand the aspects of what makes principals most effective in the ever-changing P-12 educational landscape