Date of Award
Fall 2022
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Educational Policy and Leadership
First Advisor
Burmeister, Sara
Second Advisor
LaBelle, Jeffrey
Third Advisor
Knobloch-Fedders, Lynne
Abstract
First, this research measured the spirituality, self-awareness, and leadership effectiveness of 70 lay Catholic high school leaders in Nigeria to gain insights into these leaders' self-awareness, spirituality, and effectiveness. Second, using multiple regression analysis, it also tried to determine if an association exists between lay-Catholic high school leaders’ self-rated spirituality, self-rated self-awareness, supervisor-rated self-awareness, and supervisor-rated effectiveness of the same Catholic high school leaders. Third, it also tried to determine if self-rated self-awareness, self-rated spirituality, and supervisors’ rated self-awareness would together predict leadership effectiveness among the same lay Catholic high school leaders. The study suggests mixed results. Whereas the supervisor-rated effective leadership and self-rated self-awareness did not share any relationship (r (57) = .01, p > .91), supervisor-rated effective leadership and school leaders’ self-rated spirituality shared a small to moderate positive relationship (r (57) = .29, p < .03), and supervisor-rated effective leadership and supervisor-rated self-awareness share a moderate to a large positive relationship (r (57) = .41, p < .01). The results also indicate that the school leaders’ self-rated spirituality and self-rated self-awareness share a moderate to a large positive relationship (r(65) = .51, p < .01), leaders’ self-rated spirituality and supervisor-rated self-awareness share a small to moderate but positive relationship (r (65) = 0.27, p >.12), and leaders’ self-rated self-awareness and supervisor-rated self-awareness did not share any relationship (r (68) = -.05, p > .67). The multiple regression analysis results showed that F (53, 3) = 5.25, p < .01, suggesting that 18.54% (R2 = .1854) of the variance in effective leadership is explained by the multiple regression model. These results suggest that lay Catholic high school leaders who are highly spiritual and highly self-aware are more likely to be effective Catholic high school leaders. Based on these results, it is recommended that when hiring new lay Catholic high school leaders and designing formation programs for current Catholic high school leaders, spirituality and self-awareness should be considered critical precursors to effective lay Catholic high school leadership. Keywords: Effective lay Catholic high school leadership, measurement, multiple regression, Nigeria self-awareness, spirituality