Examining Ecological Factors that Predict School Counselors’ Engagement in Leadership Practices

Abstract

There is a dearth of literature that has empirically examined ecological factors that influence school counselors’ engagement in leadership. Thus, using hierarchical regression analysis, we examined whether sociocultural factors (i.e., race/ethnicity, childhood socioeconomic status, current socioeconomic status, age, gender), professional developmental experiences (i.e., leadership experience, supervision, mentorship, leadership training), intra- and interpersonal factors (i.e., multicultural competence, leadership self-efficacy, psychological empowerment), and school climate significantly and uniquely predicted school counselors’ leadership practices. The final hierarchical regression model, using 647 school counselors nationwide, accounted for 57% variance in these practices. Sociocultural factors, professional developmental experiences, and intra- and interpersonal factors significantly and uniquely contributed to the school counselors’ leadership practices. We discuss implications for the profession.

Keywords

school counseling leadership ecological factors educational leadership multicultural competence psychological empowerment

School counselors work collaboratively with school partners to accomplish their programmatic goals and respond to social justice inequities that may affect students’ academic achievement (Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018). The counseling profession’s understanding of school counseling leadership as an outcome variable is still in its infancy. Hilts et al. (2022b) posited that “school counseling leadership is a dynamic, social process through which school counselors engage in practices that successfully garner the support from relevant school partners to accomplish a common objective and implement programs aimed at promoting student development and achievement” (p. 2). Researchers have found that school counseling leadership practice comprises interpersonal influence, resourceful problem solving, systemic collaboration, social justice advocacy, and professional efficacy (Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018). For example, school counselors demonstrate leadership by initiating new programs and interventions in their school or district and actively working with school partners to implement comprehensive school counseling programs (Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018). Mason and McMahon (2009) emphasized that more attention to school counseling leadership was warranted given that it is critical to disrupting the status quo and addressing unfair practices and policies that have the most detrimental impact on historically marginalized students (Bemak & Chung, 2008). Despite these clear and consistent earlier calls for further research on school counseling leadership, its empirical investigation continues to lag behind the counseling and broader leadership literature (e.g., Chan et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2017).

Utilizing McMahon et al.’s (2014) ecological school counseling (ESC) framework and drawing from the relevant school counseling and broader leadership literature, the current study aims to examine ecological factors that predict the leadership practices of school counselors. Given that school counselors should think and act systemically and to understand students' multilayered contexts (American School Counselor Association [ASCA], 2019a; McMahon et al., 2014), engaging in a parallel process to better understand how ecological contexts influence school counselors' engagement in leadership would be prudent. Because leadership is inherently a dynamic, social phenomenon (Hilts et al., 2022b), capturing the various ecological factors that may impact the leadership practices of school counselors could offer valuable insights on future training, practice, and research.

Ecological Factors

ESC (McMahon et al., 2014) guided the design of this study. This framework calls upon school counselors to consider multitiered influences of the environment when conceptualizing and addressing problems that emerge within the school because changes to any part of the system, small or large, can impact the rest of the ecosystem. Thus, like school counseling practice, examining the multiple, interacting, and reinforcing levels of influence between the person-environment through research may allow for a better understanding of school counseling leadership (McMahon et al., 2014). Specifically, we employed ESC to explore four levels of ecological factors in relation to school counselors’ leadership practices. Despite the limited empirical evidence for the ESC framework, some school counseling studies appear to have organized their results within an ecological framework (e.g., Robinson et al., 2019).

Sociocultural Factors

The counseling profession recognizes individuals and their environments within their cultural context; therefore, it is important to consider school counselors’ sociocultural identities and how environmental forces such as discrimination and oppression may shape their leadership practices (Robinson et al., 2019). Scholars have contended that individuals may have a strong leadership capacity, but societal biases toward an individual’s identities and social locations, such as race, gender, age, or social class, can stifle their overall leadership development (Murphy & Johnson, 2011). We specifically investigated the role of school counselors’ race, gender, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), and current SES—which Robinson et al. (2019) identified as potential salient sociocultural factors—in predicting school counseling leadership practice.

Professional Developmental Experiences

The importance of school counselors receiving and continuing to receive varied levels of leadership support—through supervision, mentorship, and targeted training (Hilts et al., 2022b)—to promote their professional growth and leadership identity development is emphasized in the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards (2016), Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)/Specialized Professional Associations (SPAs) standards (ASCA, n.d.), and the ASCA School Counselor Professional Standards & Competencies (ASCA, 2019b). Further, given that the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2019a) identifies leadership as one of the primary guiding themes undergirding school counselors’ roles and functions, targeted training on and experiences in leadership are critical for school counselors (Strear et al., 2018; Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018). To date, some research has examined the role of professional developmental experiences (e.g., leadership experience, mentorship; Mullen et al., 2018; Mullen et al., 2019) on school counseling leadership practice. Scholars have called for further empirical investigation of leadership training and mentorship (Mullen et al., 2018, 2019) and supervision in relation to school counseling leadership (e.g., Dollarhide et al., 2008; Hilts et al., 2022b; Mullen et al., 2019).

Intra- and Interpersonal Factors

School counselors’ engagement in leadership or the lack thereof may derive from any number of combinations of intrapersonal (e.g., personal beliefs, knowledge, skills) and interpersonal (i.e., relational processes) characteristics. Nevertheless, the literature has only minimally examined intra- and interpersonal factors that influence the leadership practices of school counselors. For instance, school counselors have been called upon to engage in leadership and have a sustained, lifelong commitment to develop multicultural competence to work effectively with diverse school partners (e.g., Amatea & West-Olatunji, 2007). Yet despite the ongoing call for school counselors to center multiculturalism in their leadership efforts (e.g., Amatea & West-Olatunji, 2007), researchers have not examined the relationship between multicultural competence and school counseling leadership.

Likewise, scholars have asserted that school counselors who aspire to exemplary leadership practices often encourage and empower others (Peters et al., 2018); however, in contrast to the broader leadership literature (e.g., Shapira-Lischisnky & Tsemach, 2014), limited attention has been directed toward how empowerment might cultivate school counselors’ leadership engagement (Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018). Last, researchers have found positive relationships between individuals’ leadership self-efficacy scores and their job performance (e.g., Paglis & Green, 2002), emotional intelligence, leadership experience, and self-leadership (Mullen et al., 2018, 2019). However, the extent to which leadership self-efficacy may translate to school counselors’ actual engagement in leadership practices is unclear. We examined the intra- and interpersonal factors of leadership self-efficacy, multicultural competence, and psychological empowerment in relation to school counseling leadership practices.

Systemic Factors

Systemic factors may directly or indirectly influence the leadership practices of school counselors. These factors can vary in level of abstraction and in proximity to the school counselor, ranging from school counselors’ experiences with and perceptions of school partners to less noticeable but powerful characteristics that can shape the day-to-day social life of school counselors and other school partners (Gray et al., 2017; McMahon et al., 2014; Ratts & Greenleaf, 2017).

School climate, as a key systemic factor, refers to the individual and collective cognitive and affective perceptions of school and community partners toward the norms, values, qualities, and interactions among the school community (e.g., Hoy et al., 2002). Research has shown that when school staff experience their school climate to be negative, they are more likely to experience depressive and anxious symptoms (Hu et al., 2019), have low job satisfaction (Schulte et al., 2006), and use less creativity when solving complex issues (Welsh, 2000). Conversely, when school climate is viewed positively, school staff are more likely to report higher levels of well-being (Gray et al., 2017) and self-efficacy (Damanik & Aldridge, 2017). When considering the relationship between leadership and school climate specifically, most of the literature has focused on administrators’ impact on the school climate (e.g., Capp et al., 2021). As such, examining the association between school counselors’ perceived school climate and their leadership practices could illuminate underexamined and important areas of advocacy for the profession.

Purpose of the Study

Although suppositions are present throughout the theoretical literature, empirical investigation of the unique role of the different levels of ecological factors on school counseling leadership practices would be valuable. The overall dearth of literature on ecological factors that might influence school counselors’ leadership poses unique challenges for school counselor training. Thus, further research is needed to offer implications for data-informed leadership development training reflective of the competencies required to orchestrate organizational change and address achievement gaps that persist in the pre-K–12 school system (Ratts & Greenleaf, 2017). The overarching research question that guided this study was “To what extent do sociocultural factors, professional developmental experiences, intra- and interpersonal factors, and school climate uniquely contribute to the leadership practices of school counselors?”

Method

Participants

Participants included 647 school counselors in the United States. To ensure representativeness, we recruited a sample from various regions throughout the United States and from different school levels and communities.

Of the 647 participants, the majority identified as cisgender female (n = 527, 81.5%), with 15.3% (n = 99) identifying as cisgender male and 0.3% (n = 2) as nonbinary, genderqueer, gender fluid, or transgender; 2.9% (n = 19) chose not to disclose their gender. Among the participants, 78.8% (n = 510) reported their race/ethnicity as White; 6.8% (n = 44) as Black or African American; 6.0% (n = 39) as Hispanic or Latina/o/x; 2.0% (n = 13) as multiracial/biracial, 0.5% (n = 3) as Indigenous, American Native, or Alaska Native; and 1.1% (n = 7) as Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander; 3.6% (n = 23) did not indicate their race/ethnicity. In terms of age, 31.1% (n = 201) of participants reported being between the ages 20 and 35, 44.8% (n = 290) between 36 and 50, and 24.1% (n = 156) reported being over 50 years of age or did not disclose.

The largest percentage of participants reported residing in the Northeastern United States (n = 236, 36.5%); 29.5% (n = 191) were in the South, 16.4% (n = 106) in the Midwest, and 15.0% (n = 97) in the West; 2.7% (n = 17) did not disclose this information. Regarding urbanicity, 45.0% (n = 291) of participants were from suburban schools, 30.6% (n = 198) from rural schools, and 21.9% (n = 142) from urban schools. Last, in terms of school level, 25.0% (n = 162) of participants worked at the elementary level, 19.0% (n = 123) at the middle school level, 40.5% (n = 262) at the high school level, 12.8% (n = 83) at multiple grade levels, and 2.6 (n = 17) did not disclose.

Procedures

After receiving institutional review board approval, we distributed a one-time recruitment message describing the nature of the study and a link to the informed consent and questionnaire using the following means: (a) posting on the ASCA SCENE’s open forum, (b) requesting that ASCA-affiliated state school counselor associations share the recruitment message to their membership, (c) posting in closed-group Facebook pages specifically for school counselors, and (d) contacting school counselors listed in publicly available directories provided in several state Department of Education websites. Also, similar to recruitment methods used by Hilts et al. (2019) in other school counseling research, we contacted ASCA members via email with an invitation to participate in our study.

Measures

Sociocultural Factors

Childhood SES and Current SES. We used the Individual Differences in Perceived Resource Availability (IDPRA; Griskevicius, Delton, et al., 2011; Griskevicius, Tybur, et al., 2011) to measure participants’ childhood SES and current SES. The IDPRA is 6-item, self-report measure that asks participants to rate each item on a 7-point, Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). For the Childhood SES subscale, a sample item is “I grew up in a relatively wealthy neighborhood.” For the Current SES subscale, a sample item is “I don’t need to worry too much about paying my bills.” The Cronbach’s alpha for childhood SES was .87, whereas the Cronbach’s alpha for current SES was .70. which is an acceptable threshold for the reliability of a composite score. In the current study, the Cronbach alpha coefficients for Childhood SES and Current SES were .83 and .88, respectively.

Demographics and School Background. We developed an 18-item survey to gather data on participants’ demographics. Gender was dummy coded as 1 for cisgender female and 0 for other gender identities. Race/ethnicity was dummy coded as 1 for school counselors of color and 0 for White participants.

Professional Developmental Experiences

Leadership Experience. To explore participants’ prior leadership experience, we used a single item: “How much leadership experience do you have directly related to your work as a school counselor?” Participants responded using an 8-point. Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (none) to 7 (very large amount; Mullen et al., 2019).

Leadership Training Received. To examine participants’ leadership training, a single item asked: “Please estimate the total number of leadership training/continuing education clock hours that you have accrued, both during your school counseling preparatory program and since beginning your employment as a school counselor.” Respondents were also prompted to delineate their training as follows: 1 webinar/workshop = 1 clock hour; 1 three-credit course = 45 clock hours; leadership position within a state/national organization = 20 clock hours/year; volunteering within a state or national organization = 10 clock hours/year (National Board for Certified Counselors, n.d.).

Mentorship Received. We used a single item, “On average, in the past 2 years, how frequently have you received mentorship directly related to your work as a school counselor?” to gauge mentorship that participants had received. Participants respond on an 8-point, Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (never) to 7 (weekly).

Supervision Received. To explore the level of supervision participants received, we asked: “On average, in the past 2 years, how frequently have you received supervision directly related to your work as a school counselor?” Participants responded to this item using an 8-point, Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (never) to 7 (weekly; Perera-Diltz & Mason, 2012).

Intra- and Interpersonal Factors

Leadership Self-Efficacy. We used a modified version of the Leadership Self-Efficacy Scale (LSES; Paglis & Green, 2002) to measure participants’ leadership self-efficacy. The LSES is a 12-item, self-report instrument composed of three subscales: (a) Direction Setting, (b) Gaining Commitment, and (c) Overcoming Obstacles. The measure asks participants to indicate their efficacy for facilitating leadership activities on a scale from 0% (not at all confident) to 100% (completely confident). Then, items were summed, mean scores were calculated, and scores were converted to range from 0 to 10 to aid in interpretation. Paglis and Green (2002) found evidence for the reliability (α = .92) and validity of the LSES.

For the language in the measure to be more reflective of the roles of school counselors, we modified the LSES to include the phrases “comprehensive school counseling program” and “school counseling colleagues” in place of “unit” and “employees,” respectively. A sample item of the modified LSES is “I can identify the most critical areas for making improvements in my comprehensive school counseling program’s effectiveness.” In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha for the modified LSES was .93, which indicated good internal consistency. We used the composite score for the three subscales, with higher scores reflective of a greater amount of leadership self-efficacy.

Multicultural Competence. We measured multicultural competence using One School, Many Differences (OSMD; Tadlock-Marlo & Hill, 2019; Tadlock-Marlo et al., 2013). The OSMD is a 31-item, self-report instrument that asks participants to indicate their level of agreement on a Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) concerning their counseling perspectives and personal traits. The OSMD consists of four distinct domains: (a) assessment of school environment, (b) reflection of personal culture, (c) interpersonal relationships, and (d) collaboration. A sample item is “I challenge coworkers about discriminatory practices in the school.” Cronbach’s alphas for the domains ranged from .65 to .90 (Tadlock-Marlo et al., 2013). In the current study, the composite Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .87. In our analyses, we calculated the composite score for the four domains, with higher scores being reflective of a greater amount of multicultural competence.

Psychological Empowerment. The Psychological Empowerment Instrument (PEI; Spreitzer, 1995) was used to assess participants’ psychological empowerment. The PEI is a 12-item, self-report measure in which participants respond on a 7-point, Likert-type scale from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree). The PEI includes four subdimensions: (a) meaning, (b) competence, (c) self-determination, and (d) impact. A sample item is “I have significant influence over what happens in my department.” In the current study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .89. We utilized the sum of scores for the four dimensions, with higher scores indicating a greater amount of psychological empowerment.

School Climate

We measured school climate with the 27-item Organizational Climate Index (OCI; Hoy et al., 2002). The measure asks participants to rate the extent to which statements characterize their school on a scale of 1 (rarely occurs) to 4 (very frequently occurs) and consists of four dimensions: (a) collegial leadership, (b) professional teacher behavior, (c) achievement press, and (d) institutional vulnerability. A sample item is “The interactions between faculty members are cooperative.” Hoy et al. (2002) reported Cronbach’s alphas for the domains ranging from .87 to .94. The Cronbach’s alpha for the present study was .86. In our analyses, we used the composite score of each of the four dimensions, with higher scores being reflective of a more positive school climate.

School Counseling Leadership Practices

The School Counseling Leadership Survey (SCLS; Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018) was used to assess school counselors’ engagement in leadership. The SCLS is a 32-item, self-report instrument using a Likert-type scale from 1 (never) to 7 (always); it asks participants to indicate the extent to which they engage in the described behavior or practice. The SCLS consists of five distinct dimensions: (a) interpersonal influence, (b) resourceful problem solving, (c) systemic collaboration, (d) social justice advocacy, and (e) professional efficacy. A sample item is “I initiate new programs and interventions in my school/district.” Young and Bryan (2018) reported the five factors of the scale having Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .82 to .88, suggesting good internal consistency. In the current study, the Cronbach’s alpha for the SCLS was .94. For analyses, we summed the scores of all dimensions, with higher scores indicating a greater amount of engagement in leadership.

Research Design and Data Analysis

We followed a correlational, cross-sectional survey design. Specifically, we performed a hierarchical regression analysis to determine the amount of variance in participants’ leadership practice scores uniquely explained by each level of ecological factors. Model 1 included sociocultural factors. Subsequently, professional developmental experiences were entered into Model 2 while controlling for individual sociocultural factors. Then, we entered intrapersonal and interpersonal factors in Model 3, while controlling for individual sociocultural factors and professional developmental experiences. Last, the systemic factor of school climate was entered into Model 4, while controlling for individual sociocultural factors, professional developmental experiences, and intra- and interpersonal factors. We recorded the changes in the variance of school counselors’ leadership practices with each model analyses.

According to our a priori power analysis conducted using G*Power 3.1 software (Faul et al., 2007), a sample size of 240 participants would be adequate for the present study, assuming a small effect size (f² = 0.15), high power (1-β = .95), and accounting for the 13 independent variables and at the significance level of p < .01.

Missing values for variables ranged from 76 to 132, while complete cases ranged from 691 to 747. Using SPSS (Version 27), Little’s Missing Completely at Random test indicated that the data were missing completely at random (χ² = 972.42, df = 993, p = .674). We employed listwise deletion to variables with more than 20% of missing values, and applied multiple imputation to the remaining variables where the missing values were equal to or less than 20% after screening for outliers. Of the nine dependent and independent variables that were screened for univariate outliers, four were revealed to have cases with potential univariate outliers. More specifically, within the 672 cases, we found 34 values across the four variables (and/or subscales of measures) that had a potential univariate outlier. As such, we employed Winsorization (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2018). Subsequently, through examination of Mahalanobis distance, analyses revealed 25 cases with potential multivariate outliers. We excluded these from analyses, leaving a total number of 647 cases for further analysis. We found no evidence of multicollinearity, issues of homoscedasticity, or curvilinear relationships.

Results

Pearson’s Correlations

The results revealed that nine of the 13 predictor variables were positively associated with school counseling leadership practice scores with statistical significance (see Table 1). Gender, childhood SES, supervision received, and mentorship received were the variables that did not have a significant correlation to school counselors’ engagement in leadership practices. That said, nearly all of the aforementioned variables showed significant correlation with other independent variables that did indeed predict school counselors’ engagement in leadership. For example, receiving supervision was positively related to multicultural competence.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson’s Correlation for Study Variables.

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1. SCLSP	5.48	0.71	-	.137^***	.098^**	.006	−.012	.092^**	.436^***	.143^***	.014	−.013	.503^***	.615^***	.581^***	.178 ^***
2. Age	4.79	2.05	-	-	.006	−.088 ^*	−.139 ^***	.054	.284^***	.137^***	.000	−.135 ^***	−.025	.242^***	.119^**	−.003
3. SCC	0.17	0.38	-	-	-	−.019	−.227 ^***	−.142^***	.044	.042	.046	.048	.155^***	.033	.074^*	−.077 ^*
4. CF	0.85	0.36	-	-	-	-	.034	.018	−.051	−.129 ^**	−.010	.011	−.005	−.023	−.044	−.034
5. ChSES	3.87	1.50	-	-	-	-	-	.134 ^***	−.089	−.070	.013	−.008	−.021	.027	.062	.144 ^***
6. CSES	5.04	1.38	-	-	-	-	-	-	.038	−.018	−.055	−.072^*	.012	.166^***	.116^**	.118 ^**
7. LE	4.07	1.17	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.260^***	.056	−.048	.243^***	.376^***	.328^***	.019
8. LT	208.89	478.01	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.043	−.023	.083^*	.139^***	.118^***	.047
9. SR	3.36	2.21	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.519^***	.145^***	−.019	.017	.096 ^**
10. MR	2.98	2.36	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.045	−.039	.025	.045
11. MC	3.87	.37	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.310^***	.335^***	.185 ^***
12. PE	5.79	0.72	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.536^***	.246 ^***
13. LSE	5.66	1.06	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	.209 ^***
14. SC	2.76	0.37	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Abbreviations: SCLP = school counseling leadership practice; SCC = school counselor of color; CF = cisgender female; ChSES = childhood SES; CSES = current SES; LE = leadership experience; LT = leadership training; SR = supervision received; MR = mentorship received; MC = multicultural competence; PE = psychological empowerment; LSE = leadership self-efficacy; SC = school climate.

***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05.

Note. N = 647. For gender, 1 = cisgender female, 0 = cisgender male, non-binary/genderqueer/gender fluid. For years of age, 1 = 20–25, 2 = 26–30, 3 = 31–35, 4 = 36–40, 5 = 41–45, 6 = 46–50, 7 = 51–55, 8 = 56–60, 9 = 61–65, 10 = 66–70, 11 = 71+, 12 = chose to not disclose. For SCC, 1 = Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latina/o/x, Indigenous, American Native, or Alaska Native, and 0 = White.

Hierarchical Multiple Regression

Results yielded by the first regression analysis indicated that sociocultural factors significantly explained 4% of the total variance in school counseling leadership practice. Within Model 1, we found that age (B = .05, β = .14, p < .001), race/ethnicity (B = .22, β = .12, p < .01), and current SES (B = .05, β = .10, p < .05) significantly predicted school counseling leadership practice. Conversely, childhood SES (B = .10, β = .02, p = .64) and gender (B = .03, β = .02, p = .66) were nonsignificant predictors.

Results from the second regression analysis showed that professional developmental experiences significantly explained an additional 18% of the total variance in school counseling leadership practice scores. In Model 2, only leadership experience (B = .26, β = .42, p < .001) significantly predicted those scores. In other words, a one-unit increase in leadership experience was associated with a .42-point increase in school counseling leadership scores. Leadership training (B = .00, β = .04, p = .37), supervision received (B = −.01, β = −.02, p = .60) and mentorship received (B = .010, β = .03, p = .582) were nonsignificant predictors.

Results yielded by the third regression analysis indicated that intra- and interpersonal factors significantly explained an additional 36% of the total variance in school counseling leadership practice scores beyond sociocultural and professional developmental factors. All three independent variables in Model 3—psychological empowerment (B = .33, β = .33, p < .001), multicultural competence (B = .53, β = .29, p < .001), and leadership self-efficacy (B = .18, β = .26, p < .001)—significantly predicted school counseling leadership scores. In other words, leadership scores increased by .33, .29, or .26 with every one-unit increase in psychological empowerment, multicultural competence, or leadership self-efficacy, respectively.

The fourth regression analysis indicated that school climate (B = −.010, β = −.010, p = .870) was not significantly associated with school counseling leadership practice scores, above and beyond sociocultural factors, professional developmental, and intra- and interpersonal factors.

Overall, in the final model, all variables of interest in the study accounted for 57% (R² = .57) of variance in predicting the leadership practices of school counselors. Further, beta coefficients in the final regression model indicated that a total of four variables uniquely contributed to explaining school counselors’ leadership practices, when controlling for all other variables. Namely, three of the four variables were intra- and interpersonal factors (i.e., psychological empowerment, multicultural competence, leadership self-efficacy), whereas one variable was professional developmental experiences (i.e., leadership experience). The model summary is presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Regression Model Summary and Coefficients for School Counseling Leadership Practices.

	B	95% confidence interval		SE b	β	ƒ²	R ²	ΔR²	p
Variable	B	Lower bound	Upper bound	SE b	β	ƒ²	R ²	ΔR²	p
Model 1						.038	.037	.037	<.001
Age	.047	.020	.074	.014	.135
SCC	.219	.069	.368	.076	.116
CF	.034	−.118	.187	.078	.017
ChSES	.009	−.029	.047	.019	.024
CSES	.051	.010	.091	.021	.098
Model 2						.222	.169	.182	<.001
Age	.007	−.019	.033	.013	.019
SCC	.188	.051	.325	.070	.100
CF	.063	−.077	.203	.072	.032
ChSES	.020	−.016	.055	.018	.041
CSES	.043	.006	.081	.019	.084
LE	.256	.207	.305	.025	.421
LT	.000	−.000	.000	.000	.036
SR	−.008	−.036	.021	.014	−.023
MR	.007	−.019	.033	.013	.025
Model 3						.555	.564	.357	<.001
Age	−.005	−.024	.015	.010	−.013
SCC	.032	−.072	.135	.053	−.017
CF	.068	−.036	.172	.053	.035
ChSES	−.007	−.035	.021	.014	−.013
CSES	.000	−.029	.029	.015	.000
LE	.099	.061	.136	.019	.163
LT	.000	−.000	.000	.000	.007
SR	−.011	−.032	.009	.010	−.036
MR	.001	−.018	.021	.010	.005
MC	.526	.414	.638	.057	.286
PE	.329	.262	.396	.034	.331
LSE	.177	.132	.220	.022	.261
Model 4						.000	.565	.000	.834
Age	−.005	−.024	.015	.010	−.013
SCC	.031	−.073	.135	.053	.017
CF	.068	−.037	.172	.053	.034
ChSES	−.007	−.035	.021	.014	−.015
CSES	.000	−.029	.029	.015	.000
LE	.099	.061	.136	.019	.162
LT	.000	−.000	.000	.000	.000
SR	−.011	−.032	.009	.011	−.035
MR	.001	−.018	.021	.010	.005
MC	.527	.414	.640	.058	.275
PE	.330	.263	.397	.034	.332
LSE	.176	.132	.220	.023	.261
SC	−.009	−.117	.099	.055	−.005

Abbreviations: SCC = school counselor of color; CF = cisgender female; ChSES = childhood SES; CSES = current SES; LE = leadership experience; LT = leadership training; SR = supervision received; MR = mentorship received; MC = multicultural competence; PE = psychological empowerment; LSE = leadership self-efficacy; SC = school climate.

Discussion

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which each of the four layers of ecological factors uniquely contributed to the leadership practices of school counselors. The results indicated that intra- and interpersonal factors (Model 3) were the most powerful predictors in explaining the variance in leadership practices.

Sociocultural Factors

Results from Model 1 revealed that sociocultural factors were indeed significantly associated with the leadership practices of school counselors. An examination of coefficients indicated that the specific variables within the model that significantly contributed to school counseling leadership practices were age, race/ethnicity, and current SES. Conversely, childhood SES and gender were not significant predictors.

The results concerning age as a significant predictor to school counselors’ leadership practices suggest that as school counselors increase in age, they are more likely to engage in such practices. This seems to be both supported (Mason & McMahon, 2009; Mullen et al., 2019; Robinson et al., 2019) and challenged (e.g., Lowe et al., 2017) by the extant school counseling leadership literature. For instance, Mason and McMahon’s (2009) results indicated that older school counselors were more likely to engage in leadership practices, whereas Lowe et al.’s (2017) results suggested that age and years of experience were nonsignificant predictors of transformational leadership practice. In another study, Robinson et al. (2019) found that novice school counseling participants reported that their age, particularly identifying as a younger adult, impeded their ability to establish themselves as leaders in their respective schools. We contend that increased school counselors’ age alone could plausibly increase the likelihood of engagement in leadership practices; however, given cultural and organizational cultural values, it is also feasible that older school counselors may have increased privilege and opportunity to engage in leadership. Whether or how increasing age may be confounded by positional role or increased professional experience, supervision, or professional development remains unknown. In the present study, age was positively related to leadership experience and leadership training, which may offer preliminary support toward this notion.

This study’s results revealed that school counselors with higher scores in current SES were more likely to be engaged in leadership practices. This may align with other scholars’ results in the broader leadership literature showing that individuals from higher SES backgrounds were more likely to have higher levels of self-efficacy and seek out and maintain leadership positions, compared to individuals from lower SES backgrounds (e.g., Barling & Weatherhead, 2016); therefore, current SES may influence school counselors’ engagement in leadership practice. This was partially supported by the current study’s result suggesting that current SES is positively related to leadership self-efficacy and psychological empowerment. This result should, however, be interpreted with caution. For example, Luke and Goodrich (2010) found that prior leadership begets future leadership; this may have implications on opportunities that may present themselves more often to those who are afforded such privileges. Scholars also have suggested that people from different social class backgrounds may navigate social norms, bureaucratic dynamics, and organizational policies in different ways (e.g., Martin et al., 2017). As such, this result may raise questions for further inquiry into whether an alternative leadership measure and relevant independent variables, such as emotional intelligence (Hilts et al., 2022a), may yield different results, because individuals from lower SES backgrounds tend to earn higher scores on these variables compared to their higher SES counterparts (Martin et al., 2017).

The results from the current study also showed that identifying as a school counselor of color was positively associated with school counseling leadership practices. This seems to be inconsistent with previous quantitative results (Mullen et al., 2018), but aligns with qualitative evidence that school counselors’ race and ethnicity influence their experiences with leadership (e.g., Robinson et al., 2019; Strear et al., 2018). For instance, an African American participant in Robinson et al.’s (2019) study noted that their communication with school partners was not nearly as positive as they experienced these interactions to be for their White counterparts. Scholars have also reported that based on their own personal and professional experiences with racism (specifically, anti-Black racism), they better recognize and are driven to address school policies and practices that further disenfranchise students of color and their families (e.g., Griffin, 2021). This seems to corroborate the finding in the present study that suggests identifying as a school counselor of color was positively associated with multicultural competence. It is also important to recognize the present study’s findings that, compared to their White counterparts, school counselors of color were more likely to report lower childhood SES.

Results from the current study indicated that identifying as cisgender female was a nonsignificant predictor of the leadership practices of school counselors, supporting the extant literature that has shown gender as a nonsignificant predictor of school counseling leadership (Mason & McMahon, 2009; Mullen et al., 2018). Contextualizing these results is important, however, in that the overwhelming majority of the current study’s sample were cisgender-identifying, particularly female, participants. In other words, the extent to which engagement in leadership practice could be influenced by gender-expansive school counselors is not clear.

The results from this study suggested that childhood SES was not significantly related to the leadership practices of school counselors. A potential explanation for this nonsignificant relationship could be that regardless of childhood SES, school counselors are socialized to enact leadership as part of their counseling preparation, professional development, and professional responsibilities; therefore, this may offset potential differences that may exist based on a school counselor’s childhood socioeconomic background. Taken collectively, the results of this study concerning sociocultural factors (race/ethnicity, current SES, gender identity) and intra- and interpersonal factors (e.g., psychological empowerment, leadership self-efficacy) begin to provide an initial understanding of important relationships that merit further inquiry.

Professional Developmental Experiences

Leadership experience was found to be significantly associated with leadership outcomes, whereas leadership training and amount of mentorship and supervision that school counselors received were nonsignificant predictors of school counseling leadership practices.

The results further extended the line of evidence in the extant school counseling leadership literature regarding the impact of leadership experience and training on school counseling leadership constructs (Lowe et al., 2017; Meany-Walen et al., 2013; Mullen et al., 2018, 2019; Strear et al., 2018). For example, results from both Mullen et al. (2018) and Mullen et al. (2019) revealed that school counselors who indicating having more leadership experience were more likely to score higher on levels of leadership self-efficacy. Meany-Walen et al. (2013), on the other hand, found that participants reported various leadership experiences, professional development opportunities, natural progression, and professional progression as influencing their leadership development. This seems to be supported by the current study which showed leadership experience being positively correlated with leadership training and age.

Intra- and Interpersonal Factors

Intra- and interpersonal factors of leadership self-efficacy, psychological empowerment, and multicultural competence were significantly associated with school counseling leadership practices.

Our analysis revealed that school counselors’ leadership self-efficacy predicted their engagement in leadership practice, thus extending the growing body of literature concerning relationships between school counseling leadership constructs and intra- and interpersonal processes (Hilts et al., 2022a; Mullen et al., 2018, 2019). For instance, Hilts et al. (2022a) found that transformational leadership mediated the relationship between school counselors’ emotional intelligence and their comprehensive school counseling program implementation. In another study, Mullen et al.’s (2018) results suggested that leadership self-efficacy has a positive relationship with school counselors’ emotional intelligence. In contrast to past studies, however, the current study examined leadership self-efficacy as a potential independent variable that influences leadership practice. Thus, these results may support the notion that attitudes/beliefs may lead to knowledge and skill development that could propel the school counselor to action (Ratts & Greenleaf, 2017).

School counselors are expected to have multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills, and actively engage in culturally relevant interventions/advocacy aimed at promoting the development and achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse students (ASCA, 2021b). To this end, both counseling scholars and professional counseling organizations have contended that critical actions for school counselors are engaging in collaborative relationships with school partners and enacting leadership to tackle inequities—particularly those that disproportionately impact culturally diverse students—regarding achievement, access, and opportunity (ASCA, 2021b; Ratts & Greenleaf, 2017). The present study provides empirical support for the predictive relationships between school counselors’ multicultural competence and their engagement in leadership practices.

Finally, our study supports the notion that school counselors who feel more empowered are also more likely to engage in leadership practices. This result was consistent with the broader leadership literature, which has found psychological empowerment to be a strong motivating internal mechanism that influences an individual’s performance (e.g., Lee & Nie, 2014; Solansky, 2014). For example, Solansky’s (2014) results showed that individuals who reported higher levels of psychological empowerment were also more likely to seek out leadership roles, report higher scores of confidence, and acknowledge that leadership development is a lifelong process. Likewise, the present study revealed that leadership experience was positively correlated with psychological empowerment.

School Climate

School climate as a systemic factor was found to be not significantly associated with school counseling leadership practices, above and beyond the preceding regression models. This result indicates that school climate may not be as influential on leadership practices as variables at other ecological levels. That said, Pearson correlations indicated that school climate was indeed positively correlated with the leadership practices of school counselors. This discrepancy may be because the variance in leadership practice scores explained by school climate (entered in the last model) was overshadowed by the previous model. Thus, future researchers might consider employing different analyses or ordering for each ecological factor.

Limitations

Results of this study should be considered in light of methodological limitations. One limitation is that the present study employed a cross-sectional survey, which does not allow conclusions to be drawn regarding cause-and-effect relationships between the independent and dependent variables among practicing school counselors. The cross-sectional design used in our study does not fully capture the dynamic, interactive relationships between school counseling leadership and various ecological levels (Robinson et al., 2019). Another limitation is that all variables were measured with subjective ratings. In other words, the results from this study are based on school counselors’ self-reported characteristics, which may not equate with their actual practice. Likewise, we used only a single method of measurement to measure the leadership practices of school counselors, increasing the likelihood of mono-method bias.

Another important consideration is that single-item measurements were used to measure each variable corresponding with professional developmental experiences; this approach may not fully capture the complex and potentially multidimensional nature of these constructs among school counseling practitioners. For example, perhaps the frequency of mentorship or supervision received is less important than the quality of these services; relational dynamics between the mentor and mentee or supervisor and supervisee; or the leadership attitudes, knowledge, and practices of the mentor or supervisor. Similarly, school counselors were asked to indicate how frequently they received mentorship and supervision within the past two years, rather than across their school counseling career. The framing of this language may have biased responses because novice school counselors may be more likely to receive more frequent mentorship and supervision.

Although the national sample of 647 practicing school counselors who participated in this study was generally representative of school counselors (ASCA, 2021a), the results of the present study should be interpreted with caution. For example, approximately 16% of the sample was composed of school counselors of color and 12% from schools other than public, noncharter schools; therefore, the present study’s results may not represent the characteristics of school counselors from racially/ethnically underrepresented groups and those who do not work in public, noncharter schools. Moreover, in light of the possible relationship between leadership engagement and professional development channels (Gibson et al., 2018) used for recruitment in this study, results may be subject to response bias and skewed positively.

Implications

Our study’s results offer important implications for school counseling preparatory programs, school counseling practitioners, and future research. For instance, to date, the ESC framework has not been used intentionally and systematically to understand various factors that might influence school counseling leadership practices. The results from the current study underscore the importance of understanding school counselors and their leadership practices within their immediate environment and recognizing the varying levels of ecological influence that contribute to these processes. Indeed, the final model from the current study explained nearly 60% of the variance in the leadership practices of school counselors, a result that punctuates the comprehensive and holistic nature of McMahon et al.’s (2014) conceptual framework. This may have important implications for how emerging or practicing school counselors are taught and supervised about leadership. For example, school counselor preparation programs may wish to develop assignments and learning experiences for school counseling students as part of their practicum and internship coursework that incorporate assessment and exploration of school counselor trainee leadership within the multitiered ecological school context.

The results of this study also support the importance of emerging school counselors having opportunities to engage in leadership to facilitate their leadership development and understanding of their responsibilities in enacting leadership in their roles. In this vein, counseling programs can foster a leadership-oriented environment denoted by close partnerships with local schools and active departmental professional organizations co-led by students. Scholars have noted that counselor trainees’ involvement in professional counseling organizations, such as their Chi Sigma Iota chapter, can serve as a pedagogical tool to promote emerging school counselors’ learning about professional identity and leadership (Luke & Goodrich, 2010).

In the classroom, school counselor educators can employ strategies to support emerging school counselors in assuming a holistic, ecological perspective in recognizing factors that may facilitate or impede their engagement in leadership. Considering the results of this study, such strategies may include discussion and application of the ESC framework (McMahon et al., 2014), engaging in a range of professional developmental experiences during and beyond school counseling students’ completion of the program, and addressing specific intra- and interpersonal processes relevant to school counseling leadership.

Just as McMahon and colleagues (2014) asserted that school counselors’ ability to facilitate positive change can be initiated in any system at any ecological level to support students, so too might this be applicable to school counselors’ leadership. For example, at the sociocultural level, school counselors can develop further insight into the school system by recognizing systemic forces at play and deconstructing its values, ideals, and features (McMahon & Mason, 2019). At the intra- and interpersonal level, school counselors might cultivate their understanding about how their relationships that exist at different levels within systems (e.g., school counseling colleagues) and between them (e.g., school counselors and teachers; McMahon & Mason, 2019; McMahon et al., 2014) may influence their leadership practices. Although the key systemic factor of school climate was not found to significantly predict school counselors’ leadership practices, careful attention should be given toward other systemic factors that might be more influential. Furthermore, just as the evolution of school counseling is marked by a movement toward a more systemic, ecological approach, so too must be the profession’s understanding of school counselors’ leadership behaviors in context.

Clearly, the empirical investigation of school counseling leadership is still in its early stages. Future research could aim to replicate these results or examine other variables within the ESC framework (McMahon et al., 2014) that predict school counseling leadership practices in other samples. Because an assertion of the ESC framework is that interactional causality influences all parts of the system in which the school counselor is embedded (McMahon et al., 2014), researchers could employ analyses (e.g., structural equation modeling) that may better attend to these dynamics. Last, because most studies concerning school counseling leadership constructs have focused on the perceptions of school counselors, scholars may want to examine other school partners’ perceptions and experiences or outcomes of school counselors’ leadership practices.

Implications for Practice

The results from this study also offer important implications for school counseling practitioners. First, results indicate that school counselors engaging in dimensions of leadership practice may be more likely to do so if they: (a) are involved in professional developmental experiences that cultivate their experiences with leadership roles and responsibilities of school counselors; (b) believe they can successfully engage in leadership by setting direction for their team and building relationships with school partners to gain their commitment to address identified objectives and work with school counselors to overcome barriers (Paglis & Green, 2002); (c) assess their school’s environment, reflect on their personal culture, collaborate with school partners, and have strong interpersonal relationships (Tadlock-Marlo & Hill, 2019; Tadlock-Marlo et al., 2013); and (d) are empowered and believe they have the ability to mold their job responsibilities and work context (Spreitzer, 1995).

School counselors are expected to formulate an appropriate professional development plan that can inform and guide their leadership roles and responsibilities in schools and communities (ASCA, 2019b). To this end, school counseling practitioners can actively seek out and engage in opportunities aimed at cultivating their leadership capacity to more effectively traverse common barriers to implementing a comprehensive school counseling program (Hilts et al., 2019). For example, leadership opportunities may exist in school counselors’ local, regional, state, or national community (e.g., serving on an executive committee of their county, state, national counseling organization), while seminars, workshops, and college or university coursework can have an explicit focus on leadership in schools. Likewise, school counselors can advocate to serve on school-wide and district initiatives, committees, or councils so that they have a seat at the proverbial table (Young & Bryan, 2015, 2018).

To approach leadership of their school counseling programs from a culturally informed, collaborative lens and to combat bias, oppression, and discrimination in schools, school counselors can employ a multitude of strategies. For example, school counselors can assess and adapt their school counseling program’s mission and vision statements to include explicit verbiage around antiracism and equity and to ensure that their program’s actions are grounded in such philosophies (Stickl Haugen et al., 2022). School counselors also can serve as cultural brokers and take steps to forge partnerships with families and community members so that their programmatic decision making is more closely aligned with the needs of the broader community, particularly those who are historically marginalized (Bryan et al., 2017). Last, school counselors can review specific behaviors that fall under the broader umbrella of multicultural competence (Tadlock-Marlo et al., 2013) and identify strengths and growth edges within each area.

Finally, the present study’s results suggest that when school counselors have an active work orientation toward their work role marked by their desire and felt sense of being able to shape their job responsibilities and school context (Spreitzer, 1995), they are more likely to engage in leadership practices. Further, because “empowerment is not an enduring personality trait generalizable across situations, but rather, a set of cognitions shaped by a work environment” (Spreitzer, 1995, pp. 1444), this raises important considerations for both school counselors and supervisors of school counselors. For example, school counselors can engage in critical reflection regarding what brought them into the counseling profession and how this has evolved over time. Supervisors of school counselors may offer scaffolded interventions to help facilitate school counselors’ dispositions regarding an active orientation toward their work role. One example of how this might be accomplished is utilizing the Model for Supervision of School Counseling Leadership (Hilts et al., 2022b) to cultivate school counselors’ empowerment to enact leadership.

Conclusion

The results from this study highlight the influence of sociocultural factors, professional developmental experiences, and intra- and interpersonal factors—grounded in the ESC framework (McMahon et al., 2014)—that predict school counseling leadership practices. Hierarchical multiple regression indicated that sociocultural factors, professional developmental experiences, and intra- and interpersonal factors were significant predictors of the leadership practices of school counselors. The results further suggest that intra- and interpersonal factors were the most significant predictors. Although this research made evident that the empirical study of school counseling leadership is still in its infancy and lags behind the broader leadership literature, the present study begins to take some necessary steps to understanding the relationships between ecological factors and their impact on the leadership practices of school counselors.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was based on Derron Hilts's dissertation research at Syracuse University and was funded by the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) Graduate Student Research Grant and the Syracuse University Research & Creative Grant Competition.

ORCID iDs

Derron Hilts

Yanhong Liu

Author Biographies

Derron Hilts, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and school counseling program coordinator at Niagara University in Niagara University, NY. Email: derronhilts26@gmail.com

Yanhong Liu, Ph.D., is an associate professor and school counseling P–12 program coordinator with Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY.

Dan Li, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of counseling at the University of North Texas in Denton, TX.

Melissa Luke, Ph.D., is Dean’s professor in the Department of Counseling & Human Services at Syracuse University.

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