


































International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

  Volume 7 / Issue 13 / 2020 

35 

 

 THE NEED FOR LEADER CREATION AMONGST 

ROMANIAN SCHOOL PRINCIPALS – 

EDUCATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS 

 

Adina-Petronela VECHIU 

Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences,  

Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași 

Education Policies and Management 

  adinavechiuuaic@gmail.com  

 

Abstract 

Many theories of leadership and organisational climate gave been formulated over the 

years. This paper focuses both on transformational and transactional management and on 

supportive organisational climates. The theory of transformational educational management 

was developed as a response to the need for reform in educational systems in the 1970s and 

1980s. The central convincing argument for educational staff was the assumption that a 

transformational leader motivates both teachers and students through increasing their 

consciousness regarding operational objectives and inspiring them to forego personal interest 

in favour of the organisational ‘greater good’ (Marks and Printy , 2003, p. 375). This strand of 

theory attributes certain leadership factors to the transformational leader like idealising 

influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualising consideration 

amongst others. 

The transformational leader came about as a response to the need for schools to be led 

successfully through innovative reforms. This type of leader underlines and accentuates ideas 

of change, innovation and the influence teachers have in these processes. On the other hand, 

transactional leadership is based on promoting a negotiation model which helps reaching a 

certain motivation level. This level is usually expressed through an accepted amount. 

Conversely, transformational leadership refers to certain assumed responsibilities and moral 

principles. Both leadership models aim to improve school environments, ultimately targeting 

progress through building leadership capacities amongst all those involved in facilitating 

school activities (apud Nedelcu, 2013).  

 

 

Keywords: transformational leadership; transactional leadership; educational management; 

school climate; 

 

 

The main objective of this study is to analyse the organisational climate and leadership 

styles in pre-universityteaching. The focus here is on the impact leadership has on 

organisational climate. Derived from the central aim, certain specific objectives will be 

pursued: 

• Highlighting the link between organisational climate and leadership; 

• Performing a comparative analysis of the participants’ leadership styles; 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

Volume 7 / Issue 13 / 2020 

36 

• Performing a comparative analysis depending on gender and professional experience 
of leadership styles; 

• Discovering the best predictive factors of organisational climate considering 
leadership styles. 

 

 

Research hypotheses 

1. Leadership styles (transformational, transactional) are correlated with 
organisational climate factors (supportive organisational climate; directive 

organisational climate): 

1.1. Transformational leadership is positively linked with supportive organisational 
climates; 

1.2. Transformational leadership is negatively linked with directive organisational 
climates; 

1.3. Transactional leadership is positively linked with directive organisational climates; 
1.4. Transactional leadership is negatively linked with supportive organisational climates. 

 

 

2. There are significant statistical differences regarding leadership styles 
(transformational; transactional) between the different categories of participants in 

this study: 

2.1. Significant differences exist between men and women regarding transformational 
leadership; 

2.2. Significant differences exist between men and women regarding transactional 
leadership; 

2.3. Significant differences exist between teachers with less than 5 years of professional 
experience, those with a professional experience level between 5 and 10 years and 

those with professional experience greater than 10 years regarding transformational 

leadership; 

2.4. Significant differences exist between teachers with less than 5 years of professional 
experience, those with a professional experience level between 5 and 10 years and 

those with professional experience greater than 10 years regarding transactional 

leadership;   

 

3. Leadership styles (transformational, transactional) are good predicting factors for 
supportive organisational climates; 

 

Participants 

 For the purpose of this study, 120 primary school teachers from the Iași, Vaslui, Neamț 

and Suceava counties were selected. Out of these teachers 60 are male and 60 female. 35 have 

less than 5 years professional experience, 42 have between 5 and 10 years professional 

experience and 43 have been teaching for more than 10 years. 

 

 

 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

Volume 7 / Issue 13 / 2020 

37 

 

 

Research methodology 

 

Procedure: 

 Taking into consideration the objectives of this study, the application timeframe and the 

methods used for the collection, processing and interpreting the data, this research piece is 

applicative, transversal and quantitative in nature. The method of enquiry by questionnaire 

was used. The test subjects were presented with a set of three psychological instruments based 

on the questionnaire method and a questionnaire aimed at collecting general data on the 

subject. 

 

Instruments 

  

 The first instrument used was the MLQ Questionnaire – Multifactor leadership 

behaviours for the study of different leadership styles.MLQ has been used in thousand 

research programs and PhD and masters theses. The multifactor leadership questionnaire is a 

largely researched and validated instrument. Avolio and Bass bring solid evidence for its 

fidelity and validity in their MLQ handbook. Its validity is also showed in detail through 

several factor analyses that have led to the development of this model. Moreover, a study by 

Antonakis (2003) supports the nine-factor leadership model and its stability in a range of 

situations. The fidelity score for the MLQ subscales ranges from medium to very good 

(Antonakis, Avolio, &Sivasubramaniam, 2003). In 1985 Bass developed the MLQ 

questionnaire through which he was able to differentiate between ‘transformational’ and 

‘transactional’ leadership. Transformational leadership is understood as being a leadership 

style which can produce change. Transactional leadership, on the other hand, pushes the 

group to work on the basis of transactions: the leader offers rewards when the objectives he 

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Femei Bărbați Vechime < de 5 ani Vechime 5-10 ani Vechime  > de 10
ani

STUDY SUBJECTS



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

Volume 7 / Issue 13 / 2020 

38 

sets are met. Ultimately, Bass identified four types of transformational leadership, two types 

of transactional leadership and two types of laissez-faire leadership. The MLQ questionnaire 

has two forms, namely, the Self Form and Rater Form. The Self Form is meant to be 

completed by a leader or an aspiring leader. They evaluate themselves and their own 

behaviour, therefore playing the role of the assessor and the assessed simultaneously. This 

form can be applied through a classic personality test or questionnaire centred on leadership 

qualities. The Rater Form is meant for the collaborators, superiors, colleagues and 

subordinates of the assessed subject. The former assess the latter through the prism of the 

latter’s behaviours. The present study will use the Rater Form. The Questionnaire is 

composed of 24 questions and allows leadership style assessment on a 5 level Linkert scale 

(from 1 – never to 5 – always). This study will focus on transformational and transactional 

leadership. The four transformational leadership styles are: charismatic leadership (questions 

4, 6 and 24), inspirational leadership (questions 13,19 and 21), individual consideration 

(questions 2, 11 and 12) and intellectual stimulations (questions 7, 15 and 17). The two 

transactional leadership types are contingent reward I (questions 3, 8 and 14) and contingent 

reward II (questions 10, 16 and 23). The Alpha-Crombach internal consistency coefficient for 

the MLQ questionnaire is 0,754. This demonstrates the high viability of the instrument and 

allows for the usage of the questionnaire’s results to illustrate the statistical extrapolations 

pursued by this research. 

 

Examples of questions: 

Transformational leadership: My ideas determine my subordinates to rethink ideas they did 

not previously consider. 

Transactional leadership: The work my subordinates do for me determines what they receive 

in exchange. 

The transformational leadership independent variable contains questions 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 

13, 15, 17, 19, 21 and 24.  

The transactional leadership independent variable contains questions 3, 8, 10, 14, 16 and 23. 

The second instrument used here will be The Organisational Climate Description for 

Elementary Schools (OCDQ-Re) Questionnaire which studies organisational climate in 

elementary schools.This instrument was developed by Wayne K. Hoy in 1972 and it is used 

on a large scale when studying organisational climate in schools. The OCDQ-RE 

questionnaire contains 42 questions targeting six factors that measure three approachesto the 

school’s management – supportive, directive or restrictive – and three dimensions of teaching 

staff interaction – collegial, intimate and disengaged behaviour. Each of these dimensions was 

measured though an OCDQ-RE subtest. The internal homogeneity for the used scales is 

relatively high: supportive (.94), directive (.88), restrictive (.81), collegial (.87), intimate (.83) 

and disengaged (.78). The factors that define a teacher’s openness index are collegial, intimate 

and disengaged behaviour (Hoy, Tarter, & Kottkamp,1991). The answers are spread on a 

four-stepped Likert scale ranging from ‘rarely occurs’ to ‘sometimes occurs’, ‘often occurs’ 

and ‘very frequently occurs’ scored from 1 to 4 respectively. This study will focus on 

directive and supportive behaviour factors.The Alpha-Crombach internal consistency 

coefficient for the OCDQ-RE questionnaire is 0,780. This shows that the instrument displays 

a high degree of validity and allows for the use of the questionnaire’s results to illustrate the 

findings of this research. 

 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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39 

Describing organisational climate factors pursued by this study: 

  

1. Supportive climate - supportive behaviour, open to suggestions from teachers. 

Praise is genuine and often used and criticism is constructive. Competences are valued and the 

principal takes both personal and professional interest in their teachers. This factor is assessed 

through questions 4 + 9 + 15 + 16 + 22 + 23 + 28 + 29 + 42. 

2. Directive climate – rigid behaviour manifested through constant control and 

oversight of all the teachers’ activities, up to the smallest details. This factor is assessed 

through questions 5 + 10 + 17 + 24 + 30 + 34 + 35 + 39 + 41. 

 

Examples 

Supportive climate: the principal treats their teachers like equals. 

Directive climate: the principal leads with an iron fist. 

 

 Results and debate 

 

 To evaluate the first hypothesis (transformational/ transactional leadership styles 

corelate with supportive/directive organisational climate factors) the Pearson Correlation was 

used. Following the statistical processing of the data corresponding to sub hypotheses 1, 2 and 

4, a significance level lower than 0.005 was obtained, while the significance level for sub 

hypothesis 3 was greater than 0.005. Thus, the first hypothesis is partially confirmed: 

• a statistically significant positive correlation exists between the transformational 
leadership independent variable and the supportive climate dependent variable; 

• a statistically significant negative correlation exists between the transformational 
leadership independent variable and the directive climate dependent variable; 

• a statistically significant negative correlation exists between the transactional 
leadership independent variable and the supportive climate dependent variable; 

 

1.Transformational leadership is positively correlated with a supportiveorganisational 

climate. Taking into consideration the results, a small positive correlation exists between 

transformational leadership and supportive organisational climate, r = 0.238, p<0.001. 

Therefore, subjects with high transformational leadership tend to obtain high supportive 

climate scores as well, and vice-versa. 

2.Transformational leadership is negatively correlated with a directive organisational 

climate. Taking into consideration the results, a small negative correlation exists between 

transformational leadership and directive organisational climate, r = -0.201, p<0.001. 

Therefore, subjects with high transformational leadership tend to obtain low directive climate 

scores as well, and vice-versa. 

3. Transactional leadership is negatively correlated with a supportive organisational 

climate. Taking into consideration the results, a small negative correlation exists between 

transactional leadership and supportive organisational climate, r = -0.259, p<0.001. Therefore, 

subjects with high transactional leadership tend to obtain low supportive climate scores as 

well, and vice-versa. 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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Table 1.Correlations between transformational/transactional leadership, supportive/ 

directive organisational climate: 

*p<0.05;   **p<0.01;  ***p<0.001;  si. – statistically insignificant 

 

 

 The obtained results can be validated with the help of existing studies in expert literature. 

Allen, Grigsby and Peters have examined the relationship between transformational 

leadership and organisational climate through a correlative study. The data used for the study 

was collected from a sample of principals and teachers from schools in a small south-eastern 

Texas school district. The multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ-5X) was used to 

measure the degree to which principals display the qualities of a transformational leader based 

on the teachers’ perceptions and was used by the responsible principals for self-assessment. 

The School-Climate Inventory-Revised (SCI-R) was used to measure the teachers’ perception 

of school climate. The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between 

transformational leadership and supportive school climate based on cooperation and respect. 

The principal always listens to the teachers’ opinions, frequently comments on their activity, 

always supports them, offers them autonomy and avoids direct control. Moreover, the 

relationships between teachers are friendly (Allen, Grigsby and Peters, 2015).  

 Lambert and Leithwood (1999) showed that transformational leaders increase the 

capacity of others to produce first order learning effects. For example, they cultivate a climate 

in which teachers are engage in a continuous learning process and they usually share what 

they learned with others. Transformational leaders work with other teaching staff to identify 

their personal objectives and then tie these to wider organisational objectives (Barth, 1990; 

Lambert, 2002). This approach is believed to increase engagement amongst staff who see the 

link between their goals and the school’s mission. These changes are conceived as secondary 

effects and the main aim is to cultivate the conditions that encourage others to be self-

motivated and engaged in the improvement of the school, without specific directions from 

above, in a supportive organisational climate. Leithwood (1994) observed that the primary 

effects of this strategy are realised through promoting the group’s objectives, shaping the 

 

 

 Correlations 

 

 

Transformational leadership  Sig. (2-tailed)  Pearson  Correlation 

 

 

Supportive climate 

 

       0.009 

 

      0.238** 

Directive climate 
      0.004      -0.259** 

 
  

Transactional leadership  Sig. (2-tailed)  Pearson  Correlation 

 

 

Supportive climate 

Directive climate 

 

     0.022 

      0.385  

 

    -  0.209** 

 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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41 

desired behaviour of others, intellectual stimulations and individual support (for example, 

towards the personal development of teaching staff). In these schools, principals were better at 

supporting their staff, giving recognition, recognising school issues, they were more 

approachable, they looked for new ideas and spent plenty of time to develop the human 

resources at their disposal. Leithwood and Jantzi (1999) observe that transformational 

leadership has strong direct effects on school conditions which, in turn, have powerful direct 

effects on classroom conditions, accounting for 17% on the supportive climate variance. 

 Moreover, other studies support the fact that transformational leadership has a significant 

effect on the teaching staff’s perception of school climate, their commitment to produce 

positive change within the school and the organisational learning that takes place (Bogler, 

2001, Day et al., 2001, Fullan, 2002). Regarding the results, transformational leadership has a 

significant influence on teachers’ perception of reformative progress registered within the 

school and improvements in student achievement. These observations are centred on two 

traits of transformational leadership: its distributive nature and its orientation towards 

developing capacities in a wider spectrum of school community members. Jackson’s (2000) 

evaluation of attempts to develop transformational leadership in a number of English 

schoolswithin a bigger project, shows that a set of principles regarding a more dispersed, 

flexible and receptive leadership model, adapted to the specific context of the school, rather 

than an inflexible and hierarchic model, based strict norms, is a model that better encourages 

the emergence of a supportive organisational climate, which seems to be a new paradigm in 

educational leadership (apud Marks șiPrinty, 2003). 

 To test the second hypothesis(statistically significant differences exist regarding 

leadership styles (transformational; transactional) between the different study subject 

categories)the Independent Samples t Test was used to identify the differences between the 

means of unrelated groups, when the dependent variable is normally distributed and the One-

Way ANOVA test for two variables, with the independent variable having three categories.  

 

 2.1After the statistical analysis of the data for sub hypothesis 2.1 (significant differences 

exist between men and women regarding transformational leadership), a significance level 

greater than 0.005 was obtained. The results do not confirm this hypothesis as statistically 

significant differences between men and women regarding transformational leadership were 

not observed. 

 2.2 After the statistical analysis of the data for sub hypothesis 2.2 (significant differences 

exist between men and women regarding transactional leadership), a significance level 

greater than 0.005 was obtained. The results do not confirm this hypothesis as statistically 

significant differences between men and women regarding transactional leadership were not 

observed. 

 2.3 After the statistical analysis of the data for sub hypothesis 2.3 (significant differences 

exist between teachers with less than 5 years of professional experience, those with a 

professional experience level between 5 and 10 years and those with professional experience 

greater than 10 years regarding transformational leadership), a significance level greater 

than 0.005 was obtained. The results do not confirm this hypothesis as statistically significant 

differences between the different categories analysed were not observed. 

 2.4 After the statistical analysis of the data for sub hypothesis 2.4 (significant differences 

exist between teachers with less than 5 years of professional experience, those with a 

professional experience level between 5 and 10 years and those with professional experience 

greater than 10 years regarding transactional leadership), a significance level greater than 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

Volume 7 / Issue 13 / 2020 

42 

0.005 was obtained. The results do not confirm this hypothesis as statistically significant 

differences between the different categories analysed were not observed. 

 As described above, there are no significant differences in teaching staff perceptions of 

transformational or transactional leadership depending on their work experience. Bulach and 

Lunenberg (1995) found that there are no significant differences in staff perceptions of school 

climate and principals’ leadership styles (Bulach&Lunenberg, 1995, apud Angleton et all., 

2015). A possible explanation for this could be the different survey instruments used or the 

size of the subject sample. 

 Multiple linear regression was used toanalyse the third hypothesis (leadership styles 

(transformational, transactional) are good predicting factors for supportive organisational 

climates), with the aim of finding the best predictive model for the dependent variable 

‘supportive organisational climate’.  The ‘stepwise’ method was employed, a procedure 

through which independent variables are introduced in the model and tested one by one, with 

insignificant ones being eliminated. In the end, the predictive model which best explains the 

variance is left. 

 Certain conditions need to be met prior to employing multiple linear regression as a data 

analysis method: 

• the dependent and independent variables must be normally distributed – the 
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test compares the distribution of certain values for each variable 

with a standard normal distribution; 

• the relationship between dependent and independent variables must be linear – a 
scatter plot – matrix graphical analysis will be used to illustrate the correlations 

between the variables and their nature (positive or negative); 

• the residuals must be normally distributed – the histogram compiled after the 
competition of the regression will show if errors are normally distributed; 

• avoiding multicollinearity – the correlations between independent values will be 
investigated using the Pearson correlation; the independent variables with a strong 

correlation will be highlighted; 

• avoiding homoscedasticity – an investigation will be conducted into whether residuals 
present the same variance at every level of the independent variables. This information 

will be extracted from the graph that is automatically generated by the regression. This 

will show if the points are randomly spread around the zero value. To verify the 

efficiency of certain explicative models of supportive organisational climate based on 

the independent variables transformational and transactional leadership, the stepwise 

multiple regression method was applied. 

The model’s results were statistically significant. The first test used for regression analysis 

is a global signification tests of the coefficient assembly F(2, 117) = 8.139, p<0.001. The most 

pertinent predictive model is composed of transformational leadership and transactional 

leadership because it accounts for 10.7% of the dependent variable’s variance supportive 

organisational climate (4.8% for transformational leadership and 5.9% for transactional 

leadership). The following coefficients were obtained: transformational leadership 0.162, p < 

0.001; transactional leadership – 0.200, p < 0.001. In this case, the constant has the value 

23.452, p < 0.001. 

 

 

 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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43 

The regression equation is as follows: 

CS = (C)23.452 + 0.162 × LTr – 0.200 × LTs 

C = 23.452 – constant; CS – supportive climate measured through transformational and 

transactional leadership; LTr – transformational leadership score; LTs – transactional 

leadership score. 

 

Example: 

If a transformational leadership score of 30 and a transactional leadership score of 15 were 

obtained, the regression equation would be: 

CS = 23.452 + 0.162 × 30 – 0.200 × 15 = 23.452 + 4.86 – 3 = 25.052 

 

Table 2. Regression output - ANOVA; Model Summary; Coefficients. 

 

ANOVA 

MODEL2 

 

Sum of 

Squares 

Df Mean Square F Sig. 

Regression 

residuals 

 total 

101.343 2 50.672 8.139 ,000 

728.448 117 6.226   

829.792 119    

Model Summary 

 R Rsq Adjusted R 

Sq 

Std. Error of 

the Estimate 

RSq

h 

Fch 

1 0.238 0.56 0.048 2.57594 0.56 7.054 

2 0.349 0.122 0.107 2.49521 0.66 8.75

9 

Coefficients 

(Constant) 23.452 2.548  9.204 ,000 

sc 

transformati

onal 

0.162 0.50 0.285 3.237 ,002 

sc 

transactiona

l 

-0.200 0.68 -0.261 -0.261 ,004 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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 Thus, we can say that 10.7% of the supportive organisational climate independent 

variable’s variance is explained by the transformational leadership and transactional 

leadership independent variables’ variance.   

 The results of the present study are in agreement with the results of other studies in this 

domain which reported the same results. Leadership is a key component of a school’s success. 

Transformational leaders have a great potential when it comes to influencing school climate 

(Bass and Riggio, 2006). In this study, all five transformational leadership factors (idealised 

attributes, idealised behaviour, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual 

consideration) have displayed significant positive relationships with the seven dimensions of 

school climate, underlining the importance of the style of leadership. The teaching staff’s 

general perception of leadership influences the general perception of the school climate as 

well. The results of this study are in agreement with the findings of Hallinger and Heck 

(1998) who discovered that transformational leaders have a positive impact on the teaching 

staff’s perceptions and on school climate (apud. Adams et al., 2017). 

 Other previous research (Bird et al., 2009; Rhodes et al., 2009)describe how a teacher’s 

perspective of school climate is tightly linked with their perception of their school principal’s 

leadership style. When teachers believe their principal has a high number of attributes that 

align with their aspirations and principles, they identify more easily with them and notice a 

much more positive supportive school climate (Bird, Wang, Watson, & Murray, 2009). The 

teaching staff’s perceptions observed in this study were similar with those identified by Vos et 

al. (2012), who state that the teachers’ perception of school climate was influenced by the 

principal’s behaviour. A leader who represents a role model and a support structure for their 

staff and behaves in concordance with the values they promote can easily build an 

engagement to the school and its objectives, fact which can determine teachers to perceive the 

school climate as a positive, supportive one (Gumus et all., 2016). Moreover, the 

transformational model is comprehensive because it offers a normative approach to the 

school’s leadership, focusing on the process though which leaders seek to influence the 

school’s results and not the nature or the direction of these results. It is powerful and complex 

and it manifests itself when one or more teachers engage with each other in such a way that 

administrators and teachers alike lift each other to ever higher levels of engagement and 

dedication, motivation and morality (Matthew, 2017).  

 

Micro research - The need for leader creation amongst Romanian school principals  

  

 For the purpose of clarifying the results of the empirical study and the proposal of certain 

pertinent recommendations regarding the agenda of management educational policy a 

quantitative micro research was put together. The aim of this research is to identify the 

informational gap regarding the initial and continuous training for principals and 

administration council members and to offer guidelines regarding the professional 

development of informal or formal leaders to strengthen the direct transfer of knowledge, 

skills and capabilities with the aim of improving organisational climate through tackling 

existing difficulties. 

 Regarding the research methodology, a structured interview guide was used which was 

comprised of twelve open questions. The questions had the aim of examining the following: 

the percentage of time principals allotted to administrative tasks, education-themed 

discussions with teachers, managing teachers’ behaviour, the extent to which the subjects 

apply efficient methods (transactional or transformational) with the aim to mobilise/ motivate 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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45 

teaching staff to take initiative/ increase their involvement. Another studied aspect was the 

principals’ disposition to offer support to their teachers when it comes to personal or career 

development and their perception of the organisational climate (the relationships established 

between leaders and the other teachers), as well as the extent to which they collaborate to 

maintain an optimum atmosphere. Furthermore, the questions aimed to expose certain 

difficulties that exist in educational institutions when it comes to organisational climate and 

manifested leadership, as well as assembling a list of proposals from principals meant to 

surmount these difficulties. 

 For the purposes of this research, eight principals from state educational institutions at 

different levels from Iași and Pașcani were interviewed. The interviews were conducted either 

face-to-face or via telephone and were recorded with the permission of the participants whose 

identity will be kept anonymous. 

 The analysis of the interviews revealed the following results which have been exposed 

below in SWOT specific categories, which are usually employed in educational policy 

analysis. 

 When it comes to strengths, a great number of principals encourage or even finance 

professional development courses for their teachers, with the belief that the teaching staff will 

apply what they learnt to produce positive change at school level; also, most principals did 

take part in school management-specific accredited courses that tackle the issues of leadership 

and deliver organisational behaviour improvement strategies with the aim of offering a quality 

education. 

 One of the observed weaknesses is the fact that the roles of leaders in pre-university 

teaching institutions are mostly focused on activities such as planning, developing 

organisational policy or decision making aimed at obtaining good results in agreement with 

quality assessment standards. It is then clear that activities such as socialising and regulating 

organisational policy, control, staff development with all that this brings like knowing the 

personal and professional development needs of staff members, motivating them, involvement 

in the staff recruitment process as well as involvement in the creation of a desirable 

organisational climate take a secondary place. At the same time, not all educational 

institutions have an express, clear and assumed vision to which individual objectives can be 

linked. This is caused by the fact that documents produced by the school’s management meant 

to outline the school’s ethos and vision are, most times, superficial and adopted or prescribed 

by the principal and are not a representation of the involvement of all the teaching staff, 

meaning that values and principles are not truly shared. Another aspect which must be 

considered is the fact that strategic planning in schools usually adopts national strategic 

targets without performing any diagnostic operations along with the whole of the teaching 

staff in order to produce a set of specific needs that strategic planning should be based on. 

 Moreover, 6 out of the 8 interviewed principals have identified a lack of decision-making 

skills amongst administrative staff resulting in the latter rarely being involved in improving 

school climate. The reluctance of certain actors to take initiative and propose changes and 

solutions for improving school climate and improving the relationship between principals and 

teachers was cited as a major impediment for a transformational approach to leadership by 5 

of the interviewees. At organisational climate level, principals mention that the most frequent 

conflicts appear due to different mentalities (either between senior members of staff and new 

members of staff, the latter being treated as uninitiated, unknowledgeable, excluded, without 

being involved in the life of the schoolor between individualists and collectivists). Another 

obstacle in the way of transformational leadership and an open climate, mentioned by most 



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46 

principals, is the resistance to change displayed by the Teacher’s Council and the lack of 

leverage when it comes to motivating staff. 

 The results of these interviews are in agreement with the statistics of a study performed 

by the Romanian Institute of Educational Sciences in 2014 on a sample of 150 principals and 

deputy-principals in Romania. This study shows that most of the principal’s activities are 

dedicated to administrative tasks (19%), followed by teaching (15%), managing student 

behaviour/ communicating with students (12.01%), discussions with teachers on educational 

themes (curricula, teaching  - 11.67%), school self-assessment and quality assurance of the 

school’s activities (11.36%), assessment of their own activity (9.38%) and lesson observations 

(9.08%). At the same time, the researchers observed the creation of a hierarchy of basic 

competences that principals find most important. Strategic management and planning 

competences are considered very important by the respondents - this is highlighted by the fact 

that planning and managerial projection documents are the first thing to be requested by 

principals when performing regular inspections. Human resources management skills find 

themselves just below the former in this hierarchy, with the interviewees finding them 

important as they especially refer to legal or regulatory aspects which, if breached, could 

produce legal repercussions. Communication and conflict management skills and the ability to 

intervene in the operations of the organisation are placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. The 

ability to intervene in the operations of the organisation refers to ways of using feedback 

received from students, teaching staff, parents or school inspectors (Institute of Educational 

Sciences, 2014, p35). 

 Thus, it can be noted that actions related to socialising and regulating organisational 

policy, control, staff development with all that it brings, like acknowledging the personal and 

professional development needs of the staff, motivating them, involvement in the recruitment 

and selection process as well as involvement in the creation of a desirable organisational 

climate are placed the bottom of the priority list. 

 Diagnosis studies and observations alike demonstrate the existence of a leadership skills 

crisis in the Romanian system, even if, lately, certain positive steps have been taken towards 

applying modern management theories and strategies. All international studies show a 

positive correlation between the quality of school management and the quality of education 

offered, which is manifested through the students’ results in national and international 

assessment and high engagement levels amongst teaching staff. Research conducted by the 

Institute of Educational Sciences and other studies (TALIS, 2019) have, on the other hand, 

identified obstacles related to the leadership skills crisis amongst managers: the absence/ 

insufficiency of strategic management and educational leadership knowledge/skills amongst 

people involved in leading educational institutions; seeing management techniques and 

instruments as a goal in themselves rather than a way of increasing efficiency; the absence/ 

insufficiency/ inadequacy of quality related policies, objectives and strategies for long, 

medium and short term; the presence of reductionist attitudes an preconceptions like: ‘quality 

is obtained through detecting issues/ irregularities and correcting/resolving them’ and not 

through preventing them from happening in the first place; the mostly formal interaction with 

parents, the local community and teachers at school level.   

 According to theAnnex to OMECTS no.3545/212 regarding the adoption of pre-university 

educational management policy developed as part of the Professionals in educational 

management project, a very wide variety of managerial approaches exist in the system: 

focusing mostly on the administrative aspect, while neglecting proactive management, 

organisational culture, quality and (self-)assessment; the focus is not on the quality of the 

management process but on the final product, resulting in the preponderance of directive, 

monopolising or transactional leadership approaches based on superficial exchangesand the 



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lack of a climate that encourages high performance and quality; not all managers have the 

capacity to create a culture that encourages everyone’s ideas and contributions (capacity 

usually associated with transformational leaders), a culture in which participation in decision 

making processes is encouraged dominates rather than one of negotiation; informational 

management is reduced to spreading the information received local, county or national levels 

of authority; there is no balance between the promotion of academic culture (a necessary 

dimension of a favourable academic climate) and that of a functional culture adapted to the 

end goals of each specialist domain, principals often treating teachers at each level the same, 

without taking into consideration the specific variances at each level of schooling. 

   

General conclusions; limiting factors; future research directions 

 

General conclusions 

 

 All the issues mentioned above can be traced to the lack of leadership proficiency 

amongst school managers, fact which amplifies difficulties within the school system by 

ignoring the truly important resources available – human resources – for the creation of an 

open organisational climate, characterised by support, collegiality, high engagement and 

distributive leadership. 

 Judging by the results of various studies and the priorities set by different national and 

international reports when it comes to educational leadership, the following opportunities 

can be identified with the aim of exercising effective leadership for the qualitative growth of 

the managerial act: 

• The development of normative and regulatory instruments (standards) regarding 
educational management at local and county levels; 

• The development of formative standards in the categories of management, advisory 
and control staff, corelated with occupational standards, which would ensure 

concordance with strategic priorities at system levels in the field of pre-university 

educational management; 

• Attracting more funding from the European Union to fund leadership training for 
principals in schools which struggle with high degrees of abandonment, low 

attendance and lack of teaching staff; 

• Decentralisation and an increase in school autonomy to increase the role of the 
Administration Council and the formal leader in selecting and recruiting staff. 

 

The results of previous studies on leadership styles and current organisational climate 

challenges highlight the following guidelines as policy recommendations in the field of 

training and recruiting managers and Administration Council members: 

A. At national level (responsible actors: The Ministry of National Education): 
 

• Reconfiguring the responsibilities of the formal manager through decentralising 
teaching units and assuming institutional autonomy, fact which will allow the 

educational leader the following: supporting, assessing and developing human 

resources in accordance with real-life situations and local necessities; establishing 

performance indicators and ways of increasing the responsibility degree of teaching 

staff; 



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• Professionalising the school manager position through transforming it into an 
attractive job proposition, establishing certain criteria and a desirable educational 

leader profile for the selection of competent candidates who are conscious of the need 

for innovation and change in schools as organisations; 

• Rethinking wage levels for principals and Administration Council members with the 
aim of motivating them; 

 

B. At county level (responsible actors: school inspectorates, various training bodies): 

 

• Elaborating adequate managerial training programmes, themed mainly on the 
formation of leadership competences based new evidenced standards and practices for 

principals and administration council members; 

• Developing assessment instruments aimed at testing the abilities of leadership, 
guidance and control staff in the pre-university educational system; 

• The implementation of a mentoring and counselling department within the County 
Inspectorate to offer guidance to newly appointed principals; 

• Promoting informational and communication technologies at local and county 
educational management levels, as well as managerial training through employing a 

dedicated educational management portal; the portal will offer multiple collaboration 

opportunities. 

 

C. At local level (responsible actors: principals, members of the Administration Council, 
The Teachers’ Council, local authorities): 

• Implementing the strategic management of human resources and a transactional 
motivation strategy (for example, attracting funds from local agents for teaching staff 

that is actively involved in the school’s life and actively contribute to its values); 

• The distributive application of power through task distribution and a real participative 
decisional act; 

• Ensuring a leadership style that goes beyond school limits through the careful 
selection of Administration Council members and their training (Local council 

representatives, union representatives, representatives of the mayor), and ensuring 

their involvement in school life with the aim of observing and confronting the issues 

and shortcomings facing the school; 

• The selection and training of members of the parents’ committee to encourage active 
participation which would generate initiatives for involvement and a visible 

transformation of the partnership between school and family; 

• The implementation of traineeships/ regular sessions centred on instructional/ 
transformational leadership for teaching staff with the aim of establishing, promoting 

and sharing strategies for the improvement of the educational and managerial act at 

institutional level, turning the school into a more visible entity, establishing and 

sharing a common vision, developing common problem-solving strategies for the 

school. 

 

Naturally, risks exist that can minimise the impact and slow the implementation of 

educational policies in the filed of training and recruiting managers and members of the 

Administration Council with the improvement of the organisational climate in view. The 

following are amongst the most pressing: national educational policy is established by the 

Ministry based on consultations with other institutions and ministries that might have little 



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interest in the school management or educational leadership; human resources management in 

pre-university education is the responsibility of the Ministry and it is implemented as local 

level through County School Inspectorates and the methodology of teaching staff mobility 

(recruitment, selection, appointment and transfer) is established every year through a 

ministerial order, creating a great fluctuation in staff mobility, with well bonded teacher 

groups being rare, and cases in which managers can select people who truly identify with the 

school’s mission and would consistently contribute to the school are exceptions; the existence 

of a strict legislative frame regarding the attributes of the principal, the members of the 

Administration Council, the teacher’s council, centred on the administrative-managerial side; 

Insufficient involvement on the side of the management department within the County School 

Inspectorate in the counselling and support of principals with the aim of tackling certain 

issues. 

To conclude, a durable leadership should be aimed at creating an open organisational 

climate through: establishing, embedding and utilising efficient ways to communicate, 

implementing participatory decision making, increasing the responsibility of all the members 

of the organisation, power distribution (practicing distributive leadership), socialising actions, 

developing and improving staff through acknowledging their personal and professional 

development needs, motivating staff both through transactional (financial stimuli, 

empowerment, promotions) and transformational means (individual consideration), the 

involvement of the formal leader in the staff recruitment and selection process and the 

involvement of all staff in the creation of a functional organisational climate. 

Several limiting factors that might affect the results of this research have been 

identified, the first of which is the relatively small number of participants in the quantitative 

study. A second factor which must be considered is the impossibility to control tendencies 

which make participants offer inaccurate answers to questions to create the illusion that the 

situation that they are in is better than in reality. Finally,the study was focused on the 

Moldavia region of Romania, fact which does not offer the possibility of generalising the 

results at national level.  

As a future research direction, a need to perform additional research aimed at 

assessing the relevance of the present study has been identified. Also, the development 

managerial policy agenda propositions through advancing certain common problem-solving 

strategies in schools would be a desired step forward. 

 

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