Leadership Practices And Effectiveness Among Greek Student Leaders

College Student Journal, June, 2000 by Todd C. Adams, Marybelle C. Keim

Chapter presidents indicated the extent to which the statements were descriptive of themselves, and EC members and general members rated their presidents, using a 7-point Likert scale with (1) as "not at all descriptive" and (7) as "all the time descriptive." Internal consistency reliability for this scale has been above .84 for leaders and above .92 for constituents (Posner & Brodsky, 1993). To assess respondent characteristics, demographics including age, class, and grade-point average, were collected from all participants. EC members and chapter presidents were asked an additional question about time in position.

Procedures

Data were obtained by the first researcher who administered the instruments after organizational meetings of the groups. The instruments were completed at chapter houses (two universities) or at a central campus location (one university) and collected from each participant.

Respondent Characteristics

The 233 subjects included 21 (9%) chapter presidents (12 women and 9 men), 105 (45%) executive council members (60 women and 45 men), and 107 (46%) general members (60 women and 47 men). Nearly 39% were classified as juniors--45% of women and 31% of men. Thirty-one percent were sophomores, 16% seniors and 13% freshmen.

The largest percentage of students were 20 years of age (36% women; 32% men). The mean age of women was 20.0 years, with means of 20.8 years for chapter presidents, 20.0 years for EC members and 20.5 years for general members. The mean age of men was 20.2 years, with means of 21.4 years for chapter presidents, 20.4 years for EC members, and 18.9 years for general members.

Overall, 21.6% had grade-point averages between 3.50 and 4.00, 35.9% between 3.00 and 3.49; 32.5% between 2.50 and 2.99, 9.1% between 2.00 and 2.49, and .9% below 2.00. Between 3.50 and 4.00 were 25% of women and 16.8% of men. Between 3.00 and 3.49 were 41.7% of women and 27.7% of men. Between 2.50 and 2.99 were 26.5% of women and 39.6% of men. Between 2.00 and 2.49 were 6.1% of women and 12.9% of men. Below 2.00 were .1% of women and 1.0% of men.

Presidents and EC members were asked how long they had served as officers. The largest number of EC members had served less than one-half year; 26 women EC members (43.3%) and 23 men EC members (51.1%) were in this category. Of chapter presidents, 50% of women had served their chapters as president between 12 and 23 months, and 66.7% of men had served more than 24 months.

Findings

Total scores of participants on the Student Leadership Practices Inventory are presented in Table 1. On all five practices measured by the SLPI, scores for women were above 25.02. Scores for men on Inspiring a Shared Vision, Enabling Others to Act, and Encouraging the Heart were above 24.36, but were not as high as the women's scores on the same practices. Scores of women general members and EC members were higher than scores of men general members and EC members. However, men presidents' self-perceptions on Inspiring a Vision and on Modeling the Way were higher than women presidents' self-perceptions.