Abstract

In order to find out what the younger generation's ideal leadership type is and whether the young people have a democratic attitude, incoming freshmen of a college from ),972 through 1979 (except the year 1978 for which data are lost) were asked to indicate one preferred type from anong seven different leadership type itself, the question asked the subjects to choose one leadership type under which they would rather rear their children as parents. The number of subjects varied from year to year from 235 to 381. The principal findings were (1) the majority of the students considered a mixture of democratic and autocratic types as most ideal; (2) the next most preferred types, in the decreasing order, were the democratic type, the mixture of democratic and laissez-faire, and the mixture of democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire The least preferred types were the laissez-faire type, the autocratic type, and the mixture of these two; and lastly (3) in 1979, as compared to previous years, the student preference for the mixture of democratic and autocratic declined while their preference for the democratic type clearly increased. The preference for the democratic type had been steadily decreasing since 1972 until 1977 before it showed all upturn in 1979.