Impact of School Leadership Style on the performance of Teachers: Public Secondary Schools Evidence from Baluchistan

Abstract

The research is an investigation of the impact of administrative approaches by principals in the performance of teachers in Balochistan, Pakistan, in the public secondary schools, with particular emphasis on three of the classical leadership behaviors described by Lewin, Lippitt and White (1939): democratic, autocratic and laissez-faire leadership. With the help of a quantitative, positivism research design, 528 teachers and 86 principals in six Naserabad Division districts were surveyed using two Likert-scaled, structured questionnaires. The relationships among each leadership style and various dimensions of teacher performance such as professional competence, motivation and job satisfaction, collaboration and teamwork, innovation and creativity, and professional development were tested using descriptive, correlational and regression analyses. Results indicate that democratic leadership was the most commonly perceived (M = 3.94) and strongest positive predictor of teacher performance (586, p =.001) followed by laissez-faire leadership, which also had a less significant yet statistically significant positive effect (=.490, p =.001) when teacher autonomy was combined with professional competence. On the other hand, teacher performance was negatively correlated with autocratic leadership (= -.258, p =.002). The three styles accounted for 56.1 percent on teacher performance. This paper concludes that the most effective lever that principals can use in resource-starved state schools is participatory, teacher-inclusive leadership practices, and it provides practical suggestions on how principals should be trained and educated in Balochistan.