ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTIONS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL ...

Second, physical contact with students led to employment actions. Litigation could favor
the administrator in such cases if the circumstances could be reasonably understood. However,
excessive contact was inexcusable and resulted in unsuccessful litigation on the administrator’s
part.
Third, the most common issue that was assimilated under outlandish behaviors was
sexual impropriety of some sort. Sexual improprieties such as malfeasance and/or harassment
were not judged on the intentions of the offending party, but rather the impact of the impropriety
on the party that was offended. If the school system had followed proper protocol and could
show that the sexual impropriety had negatively impacted the administrator’s past performance
or would seriously impair the administrator’s future performance then employment actions
levied by the school system would stand up in court.
Interpersonal strife. Interpersonal strife was discussed at length in the review of literature
where it was regarded by other researchers as people skills or interpersonal skills. The researcher
designated this issue as interpersonal strife, which included the interpersonal failures of school
administrators that factored heavily in employment actions. This issue was closely associated
with failed leadership as one-third of the cases listed in Table 30 were also identified with
interpersonal strife. There were three points of conflict within this issue: interpersonal strife with
followers, interpersonal strife with leaders, and interpersonal strife with leaders and followers.
First, administrators experienced interpersonal strife with followers in situations when
new programs were instituted or previous programs were modified to the dislike of the faculty,
staff, and/or parents. Moreover, the next area that caused strife with followers was any instance
where sex became an issue with the administrator and a follower in some capacity. Sex did not
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