Servant Leadership of the Basic Education School Principals : The Study to Create Grounded Theory

Abstract

The research objectives were to study and present servant leadership of basic education school principals under the jurisdiction of the Office of Basic Education Commission, in the aspects of leadership characteristics, causal conditions, performance and factors affecting leadership, and impacts of leadership. Informants consisted of principals, teachers, students, parents and community leaders. The target area included the educational institutions where the principals possessed explicit servant leadership, obtained by using snowball technique. Data were collected by using document analysis, In-depth interview, participatory observation, small group conversation, and capturing descriptive information. Content analysis technique was applied for data processing by using grouping information systematically, interpreting, aligning information, and classifying information in content groups. Research findings revealed that: 1. Servant leadership characteristics consist of Meaning means "help provide service, have morality, ethics, be a friend, sacrifice, volunteer spirit," and the components consisted of vision, determination, and Intensive development. Public mind and services, and harmonize one's mind, protect appreciating, and media and technology values 2. Causal conditions consisted of individuals: "Being principals of servant leadership". Identity: "Bringing the wisdom of the monarch to develop teams committed to service, co-ordinating with the community, and develop quality people to excellence." 3. The practice of Servant leadership consists of specifying vision, developing strategies, accelerating operations, Cooperation, focusing on network building, and distributing evaluation. 4. Factors affecting servant leadership consisted of positive factors such as characters of the principals, management process of quality teams, and excellent institutions. The negative factors were weak teams, insufficient budget, and unclear policy. 5. Consequences of servant leadership included 1) principal self-esteem, good reputation, professional management, 2) students’ high achievement, having life skills, media literacy, 3) Social awareness institutions had quality according to the standards, and guardian and community accepted and be proud.