This research examined the relationship between Illinois Directors, of special education leadership styles and the importance of the Illinois mandated standards for Director of special education. It extends the current research in educational leadership by specifically exploring the relationship between the importance of special education standards and leadership style. Using a quantitative research design, this study examined the leadership styles of Illinois public school Directors of special education and determined which state-mandated standards are important to them. To evaluate the perceptions about the relevance of current mandated standards and educational leadership style, two online questionnaires were administered to 140 Illinois public school Directors of special education who held their positions during the 2012-2013 school year. Requiring analytic strategies, this study involved a specific set of analytical techniques for substantiating the relationship between identified personal leadership styles and the importance of state-mandated standards-based performance indicators. Ordinal data was based on the level of agreement on the leadership inventory. Descriptive statistics were utilized to measure the linear relationship between the State of Illinois-mandated Director of special education standards and the identified personal leadership styles. Multivariate analysis was conducted to examine the multiple independent variables. Data indicated that there was a difference in leadership styles amongst Directors. Subjects' leadership tendencies fell into two general themes: transformational leadership and transactional leadership. As self-perceived transformational leaders, Directors rated special education finance as most important. Secondly, the identification of students and provision of services was another high average among the standards, which may also be related to the transformational leadership style. The importance of these findings is twofold. In general, there is limited research on the leadership style of Directors of special education when compared to voluminous studies on school superintendents and school principals. The results of this study show that those who hold the position of special education director see themselves as transformational leaders, similar to both superintendents and principals. The results also show that fiduciary responsibilities, along with providing services to students, are most important to special education directors, which mirrors research on school superintendents. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]