An empirical investigation of the educational leadership styles, attitudes, and needs in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, a developing country, has been striving to achieve economic growth and to improve the standard of living for its people. Thus, much attention has been given to strengthening educational programs to provide enrichment opportunities.

The purpose of this study was an attempt to determine whether or not selected demographic and organizational variables affect the leader-ship styles and attitudes of Saudi public school principals. The study also examined the needs and satisfaction among Arabian school administrators in terms of these variables.

A review of literature was conducted to examine a wide range of empirical research in America and in a cross-cultural context relative to leadership styles, attitudes, and needs that have been observed, analyzed, and documented by other researchers.

A three-part questionnaire was designed to survey the sample population (1,000 principals in Saudi Arabia) relative to leadership styles, attitudes and needs among Arabian educational administrators. The response rate of 31 percent was considered acceptable given the people's unfamiliarity with such studies and the presence of other cultural and environmental variables. Demographic data, the relationships between the independent and dependent variables, the relationship between various dependent variables, and raw score comparisons were analyzed and conclusions were drawn. The techniques of a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and calculations of correlation coefficients were also utilized to anlayze the data. The findings indicate that demographic and organizational variables do have an effect on the leadership styles, attitudes, and needs of educational administrators in Saudi Arabia. This was borne out in the results which showed that only five of the fourteen selected independent variables, such as sex, income, and childhood background had an impact upon the sample of 312 school administrators in relation to other dependent variables used in the study. Other variables had minimal or no effect at all.

Based on the findings of this study, recommendations were offered to help improve the situation of school principals in Saudi Arabia.