Examining the Relationship Between Principal Leadership and School Climate

The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the relationship between transformative school principal leadership and school climate. The population of this study consisted of two middle schools with grades ranging from six through eight and one high school with grades ranging from nine through twelve. These schools are within the state of Texas. Quantitative data were obtained by using two instruments, the Principal Leadership Questionnaire (Jantzi & Leithwood, 1996) and the School Climate Assessment Instrument (Alliance for the Study of School Climate, 2014), and evaluated to determine if (a) correlations exist between the factors of transformational leadership and school climate, (b) if any predictive linear relationships exist between the factors of transformational leadership and school climate, and (c) if the individual school site, employment role, and tenure influence school climate in the tested Texas schools. This study found that there was: (a) a statistically significant relationship between the six factors of transformational leadership and the leadership decisions factor of school climate, and (b) that the factors of transformational leadership influenced the factors of school climate, and (c) that the school site was the most significant predictor of school climate.