One emerging type of school that is growing in the United States is the private Christian school. The focus of this study is to determine what the indicators of engaging leadership are for private Christian schools in Texas. Determining the indicators of engaging leadership—leadership that involves a deep, meaningful connection between the leader and followers—is what private Christian school leadership for the 21^st century must look like. The impact of not knowing or developing these indicators in the private Christian school could substantially limit the impact of administration, faculty, parents and eventually student outcomes.

Support for the identification of indicators of leadership is in the research and scholarly literature on school leadership (Kane, 2006 ; Goleman, McKee, and Boyatzis, 2002; Bolman and Deal, 1991; Nanus, 1991; Senge, 1990; Badaracco, 2002; Farkas et al., 2001; Parker, Stone, & Wood, 2005; Davis et al., 2005; Pellicer et al., 1990; Kouzes and Posner, 2007).

This study involves two different phases that eventually will result in the indicators. Phase one is based on nine interviews with private Christian school heads in the state in order to understand their journey in leadership and to use their responses to create a list of indicators that they saw foundational to their success in leadership within the private Christian school. These indicators will than be used in phase two to develop a survey instrument that will be distributed to over 700 private Christian school administrators within the state. The results of the survey will be used to identify the indicators.

The implications of the study will have value for this specific population of Christian school leaders. The indicators would assist school boards and heads of schools with their employee searches and hiring practices. The focus of administrator's professional development can also benefit from the findings by determining what specific topics schools need to focus on with their leadership training.