The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether the nature of leadership in Ohio Title I Schoolwide Project Schools that were deemed effective by the U.S. Department of Education differed from leadership in those Ohio Title I Schoolwide Project schools that were considered ineffective. The specific focus was to determine whether effective and ineffective schools differed with respect to the extent to which principals and the schools as a whole evidenced a bifocal, symbolic, technical, or unfocused leadership orientation. The Principal Behavior Inventory (PBI), developed to elicit principals' perceptions of their leadership styles, and the PBI-T, designed to measure teachers' perceptions of the same variables, were administered to 70 principals and 40 teachers respectively to determine construct validity. Four schools were selected from the entire sample for the district, and the principals and three teachers from each school completed the instruments. Two had bifocal (balanced between symbolic and technical leadership) principals, according to the PBI and PBI-T, and two had unfocused principals. The four schools are described in detail. In the effective school headed by a bifocal principal, both the principal and the teachers showed a bifocal orientation and worked together for technical and symbolic dimensions of their work. In the effective school with an unfocused principal, the school as a whole was bifocal, and leadership was diffused. In the ineffective school headed by a bifocal principal, the school was characterized by confusion and mistrust stemming from its previous administration. The ineffective school with the unfocused principal demonstrated an overall unfocused leadership orientation. Overall, findings show that both of the effective schools evidenced a bifocal schoolwide leadership orientation and both of the ineffective schools evidenced an unfocused schoolwide leadership orientation. Appendixes contain the principal and teacher interview protocols. (Contains 9 tables and 27 references.) (SLD)