| New employees lack the professional development, decision-making, and developing skills when entering the Department of Student Affairs (Ondercin, 2009). Given this information, the literature indicates that administrators use different leadership styles and techniques when addressing workplace problems and challenges. This quantitative correlational research study investigated the relationships among student affairs administrators in NASPA's Mid-East region pertaining to their leadership frames and practices disaggregated by gender and the length of time in student affairs (new versus mature administrators). Two instruments used in this research were Bolman and Deal's four-leadership frames typology and Kouzes and Posner's leadership practices inventory. The dependent variables in the study were nine subscales from both the Leadership Orientation Survey (LOS) by Bolman and Deal (1991a) and the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) by Kouzes and Posner (2002). The independent variables in the study were, first, gender of the administrator (male/female) and second, tenure of administrators dichotomized as new administrators with 5 or less years of service versus mature administrators with 6 or more years of service (National Association for Student Personnel Administrators, 2009). Study findings revealed a correlation between both survey instruments and that certain subscales yielded significant results. Recommendations for future research include the need to expand future studies to encompass additional demographic information from participants (race, name of the position held, actual years of service, and identifying the number of administrators who use multiple leadership frames and practices). Researchers should examine additional methods to increase the number of survey participants. The incorporation of these suggestions would increase areas for generalizability. |
