Leader Values-Needed and Student Values-Held: Dilemmas for Leader Educators 259salvation and/or health as one or more of their top three values. Only 19% of the students in
three years did not hold one of these values in their top three.
As shown in Table 2, of the 18 possible choices, the top three instrumental values
mentioned most by the students include honest (sincere and truthful), responsible (dependable
and reliable), and loyal (faithful to friends and/or group). From a possible 273 responses,
these three values represented 45% of the total possible responses. All three top three
instrumental values were held by 6% of the participants. Two of the top three terminal values
were held by 38% of the participants. Only one of the top three values was held by 39% of the
Table 2. Rokeach Values Survey: Summary of key findings ”Instrumental Values.”Top 3 Ranked
Terminal Values
Participants = 91 (N)Responses = 273 (R)
{91 N x 3 R each = 273 R}
273 R % of RIndividual Participants (N) Ranking
of H + Re + L
N (91) % N
Honest (H) 58 R 21.2% R
Responsible (Re) 34 R 12.5% R
Loyalty (L) 30 R 11.0% R
Total 122 R 45%
H + L + Re 5 5.5% N
H + L 18 20.0% N
H + Re 12 13.1% N
L + Re 4 4.4% N
H 22 24.1% N
Re 12 13.1% N
L 2 2.2% N
Total 75 82.4% Nparticipants. Most notably, 83% of the participants held honest, responsible, and loyal as one or
more of their instrumental values. Only 17% of the students in 3 years did not hold one of these
values in their top three.
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
The key finding of this study was that the values-held by students who are preparing to
become school administrators do not match the values-needed by future school leaders, one of
the reasons this essay was written. This instructor wanted to come to grips with the seeming
contradiction of the findings (values-held) with the values-needed by school leaders. It was
difficult to reconcile the fact that 81% of the students whose careers will be organizational
leaders valued seemingly personal values of family security, salvation and health over, for
example, such seemingly important leadership terminal values as sense of accomplishment,
freedom or wisdom. In three years, consistently semester after semester, even factoring for
gender, age, or ethnic background, the same three values remained in the top three, as they
continue to remain the top three in this current semester’s analysis. Two questions that arose
for this educator were: How could critical thinking take place with individuals, who so highly
valued the presence of an authoritative voice, and the relative obedience to that voice, if
salvation is so highly valued? How would these future principals encourage teacher decision
making and teacher leadership which is highly valued, based on the literature?