The Impact of Ineffective Leaders on Organizational Performance

A minimal amount of scholarly and professional literature exists on the challenges of new public school principals without leadership training, resulting in high turnover and reduced organizational performance. A non-representative sample of 25 public school principals from multiple education organizations within Lancaster County, PA, became the voices of this single case study. The study’s boundaries strictly followed the geographical confines of the sole education agency and its public school districts. I conducted the study over two months and explored the real-world experiences of those principals. The effects and influences of ineffective organizational leaders, and their impact on turnover and organizational outcomes performance. The study’s framework included one input construct, three concepts, two actors, two leadership theories, and three output constructs. The study’s purpose statement added an input construct, bringing the framework elements total to 12. Only PK-12 leaders of certified instructors contributed to this study. After contacting 88 public school principals from eight districts, 25 qualified principals answered 10 official interview questions and took an anonymous survey. Two unofficial interview questions contributed to the Application to Professional Practice and Recommendations for Further Study subsections. While responding to research instruments, the principal’s collective words answered the three research questions. Five Themes emerged from the findings and included: 1) Principals’ Ponderance to Leave the Profession, 2) An Abundance of Self-directed Leadership Training, 3) Underprepared to Retain Teachers, 4) Recruitment vs. Turnover/Retention, and 5) Mentorships. Constructivism was the research paradigm used, and it stood for each person’s reality, as I sought to understand all 25 of their realities.