A STUDY OF PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR AND PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS AT SELECTED FOUR-YEAR PUBLIC HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIE

Problem. The problem of this study, in question form, was: At historically black colleges and universities, are there statistically significant relationships between the reported perceptions of presidential leadership behavior and the institution's perceived effectiveness across nine dimensions of effectiveness criteria as reported by the president and the president's executive cabinet?;Procedures. The data used for the study were from the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, Form XII (LBDQ) and Cameron's Institutional Effectiveness Questionnaire. The questionnaires were mailed to sixteen presidents and ninety-five cabinet level administrators at sixteen institutions. A total of sixty-nine (62%) usable questionnaires were returned. Respondents were divided into three position categories for data analysis: president (N = 11), academic officers (N = 33), and business officers (N = 25). Statistical tests included: t-tests of independent and dependent means, two-way analysis of variance, Newman-Keuls multiple comparisons, and Pearson product-moment correlation method.;Findings. The results of the study are these: (1) No significant differences exist between presidents and cabinet members regarding perceptions of presidential leadership behavior; however, the presidents see themselves as more structured than considerate in behavior. (2) Comparisons between cabinet member subgroups showed business cabinet members perceive the presidents as significantly more considerate with respect to leader behavior than did academic cabinet members. (3) Significantly positive relationships exist between presidential structure behavior and the following institutional dimensions: Student Career Development (r = .52), Faculty and Administrator Employment Satisfaction (r = .52), and Ability to Acquire Resources (r = .55). With regard to perceptions of the president's Consideration leader behavior there exists one positive correlation--ability to acquire resources (.55). Also, the relationship between Consideration and faculty and administrator employment satisfaction while substantially weaker was found to be significant at the .10 level. (4) As a group, cabinet members perceive student academic development (p < .05) and organizational health (p < .07) less favorably than the presidents as a group. (5) Presidents, more than academic cabinet members, view the quality of academic development more favorably (p < .05).