The Associations Between Instructional Leadership Skills, Practice, Self-Efficacy, and Professional Well-Being for Early Learning and K-12 Leaders in the United States

Leaders in the United States in both the ECE and K-12 sectors often feel underprepared for the role, particularly in the area of instructional leadership. Perceived deficits in preparation can be harmful to the self-efficacy essential for leaders’ job engagement and role longevity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between leadership skills, instructional leadership practice and self-efficacy, and professional well-being via a structural equation modeling framework with over 1000 leaders nationally in both the K-12 and ECE sectors. Findings demonstrate a good fit for our conceptual model and positive associations between leadership skills, efficacy, and instructional leadership practice. Leader efficacy was also strongly related to improved professional well-being, as measured by job satisfaction, isolation, burnout, and intent to leave.