Thinking Styles of College Women Leaders

This descriptive case study used both quantitative and qualitative methods to identify preferred thinking styles of women administrators who hold leadership positions in community colleges, and to deter-mine if their thinking styles varied across administrative positions. The Inquiry Mode Questionnaire (InQ) was used to collect survey data. Interview and observation protocols were used to gather focus group data.The results of this study indicate women administrators in community colleges prefer a variety of different thinking styles. Some thinking styles may be more dominant than others. These participants had a decided preference for idealist and realist thinking styles. Quantitative results indicated a significant difference in preference for one style between top administrators, department chairs and program coordinators.