Presidents are expected to articulate vision, devise plans, and facilitate decision making. These different dimensions of the job are sometimes complementary, but they may also compete for the president's attention or suggest contradictory ways of proceeding.

When confronted with the problems of urban school districts, such as an ever-increasing achievement gap, the underfunding of school districts, increased shortages of qualified teachers, greater emphasis on accountability, and the loss of public confidence, African American superintendents have considerable difficulty leading their school…

Coaching has received considerable attention in recent years as the responsibility for employees' learning and development has been increasingly devolved to line managers. Yet there exists little published empirical research that measures specific coaching behaviors of line managers or examines the linkages between line managers' coaching behavior…

This study addressed the perceptions of isolation among high school principals in Georgia. The data collection process, in which interviews were conducted, provided insight into the lived experiences of 10 principals. One of the findings was that high school principals were relieved, in a sense, to discuss their perceptions of the…

This study aimed to identify the main features of career well-being and the emotions people experience as they navigate their careers. Data from 89 individuals working in various occupations suggested seven features of career well-being involving the following: career transitions, interpersonal relationships, relationship with the organization,…

The mere word "bureaucracy" brings to mind images of endless lines, piles of paperwork, and frustrating battles over rules and red tape. But some bureaucracies are clearly more efficient and responsive than others. Why? In "Teaching, Tasks, and Trust", distinguished political scientists John Brehm and Scott Gates show that a good part of the…

This paper describes the Work Performance Assessment (WPA) and the Work Personality Profile (WPP) and provides instructions for their use. The WPA and WPP evaluate behaviors associated with job retention and advancement among disabled workers. Together the two evaluation components form a comprehensive observational assessment designed to provide…

Although principals are essential to their schools' effectiveness, they often receive only perfunctory evaluation. Themes from current literature on principal evaluation are highlighted in this digest; they include the reasons for principal evaluation, initial steps in designing evaluation systems, methods and sources of evaluation, and models of…

Selected cognitive science methods were used to modify existing test development procedures so that the modified procedures could in turn be used to improve the usefulness of job knowledge tests as a proxy for hands-on performance. A plan-goal graph representation was used to capture the knowledge content and goal structure of the task of using a…

A study was done of individual job involvement as it affects support services in some areas of higher education. The basic research question was: Given selected personal characteristics of support services staff members and certain situational characteristics, which set of variables would most effectively account for the variations in the degree…

Competent performance is described in terms of the competency to be performed and a set of standards applied to that performance that covers both routine and nonroutine skills. The competency-based approach brings flexibility to a training and education system. It allows the development of a continuum of competence statements from basic to…

Eighty Utah companies currently hiring Indochinese refugees and 73 identified simply as "general employers" took part in a study of employers' reactions to Indochinese refugees as job applicants and as employees. The study used questionnaires and oral interviews directed at personnel managers and supervisors and some language proficiency…

The labor force participation of women with young children has increased dramatically in recent years, stimulating research concerning how perceptions of a woman's competence and personality are affected by her employment and family roles. Relatively little is known, however, about perceptions of women with very young children. This study explored…

A study was designed to determine if soldiers trained to use chemical agents are more proficient in performing their jobs in an environment where lethal chemical agents are used and more confident of their ability to survive. A treatment group, composed of 150 soldiers, knew that their training would involve lethal agents in the Chemical…

A study was conducted to examine the face support and control moves that occur in a manager's communication to a poorly performing subordinate over the sequence of his or her violation. Face support was defined according to the degree of approval (positive face) and the degree of freedom (autonomy) given to the poor performers to define a course…