Abstract
A problem with leadership theory research is that many theories have been constructed without envisioning their use in school settings. Based on the problem, this study has two objectives. The first is to understand the similarities and differences among leadership theory studies that have been receiving attention from the 1970s to the present. The second is to clarify the extent to which principals of schools actually emphasize and act on the characteristics listed in the first. The results revealed that there is a tendency to place more emphasis on “policy communication,” in which the principal presents educational activities with goals to be carried out in line by the teachers, rather than “empowerment collaboration,” in which the principal works with teachers to bring out their abilities and carry out their duties. It became apparent that the latter type of leadership, which has been the ideal of previous theory research on leadership, is not realistically emphasized in the school setting. Furthermore, it was possible to derive the possibility that leadership behavior based on both “empowerment collaboration” and “leadership dominance” is leadership with a common foundation.
