Indicators of Leadership Competencies of Educational Administrators; Findings of a Grounded Theory Study

The main purpose of this study is to provide a leadership competency model for primary school administrators, which has been done via the Grounded theory approach. Data collection tool was a semi-structured interview with 22 school administrators, deputies and teachers who were selected based on theoretical sampling method. In this study, content analysis method was used to analyze the interviews and to determine the validity of the adaptation by members and peer review. To estimate the reliability of the instrument, the test-retest and the internal consistency methods were used. Concepts and components of leadership competencies (144 key concepts, 29 primary categories and 5 secondary categories) were identified from the interviews and developed in the form of the Grounded theory conceptual model. According to the research findings, the central category is the leadership competence of the administrators. The components that emerge from the heart of the interviews are as follows: The components of strategic planning (strategic thinking, foresight, goal setting); Comprehensive management components (behavior management, resource management, cost management, contingency management, motivation); Knowledge-building components (scientific specialty, education knowledge, management knowledge, communication knowledge, research skills, communication skills, creating communication networks, recognizing school activities, recognizing values, understanding the environment, structure recognition), the components of personal characteristics include (moral, behavioral, personality, attitude, intelligence and belief) as well as the components of credibility include (reputation among school administrators, moral reputation, change agent).