PRINCIPALS’ LEADERSHIP STYLES AS DETERMINANT OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS EFFECTIVENESS

ABSTRACT

The study examine principal leadership styles as determinant of public secondary school effectiveness in Edo State the study sought to find out the some of the leadership types and styles used by principals in secondary school to make school effectiveness. To achieve the purpose of this study seven (7) research questions were raised, two (2) were answer while five (5) were turned into hypotheses and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey research that adopted correlational survey design was adopted for this study. The population of the study consists of three hundred and nine (309) principals in public secondary school in Edo State, A sample of 62 principals in public secondary schools, which is 20% of the population. The stratified and propotionate samply procedure were used to select the sample for the study. The school were stratified into 3 senatorial districtcts and local government of Edo State which is (Edo South, Edo Central and Edo North). Two set of research instrument used to gather data for the study was titled Principal Leadership Styles Questionnaires (PLSQ) and School Effectiveness Questionnaires (SEQ). Data collected was analyzed using means and standard deviation with criterion mean set at 2.50 in line with the rating scale. All the hypotheses were tested using preason r statistic at an alpha level of 0.05. The finding of this study shows that the democratic leadership style is the most adopted by principals in public secondary school in Edo State. Although principals in public secondary schools within the Benin metropolis practices other xii styles of leadership like autocratic, transactional laisse affair leadership styles which can also improve school effectiveness. However, the research noted that most of them practiced the democratic style of leadership without knowing it. Based on the finding of the study it was recommended that to sustain the democratic leadership practices in schools, there is need for principals to be good listeners, be friendly with the staff members, and hold regular meetings for all stakeholders in the school. If this is done, performance in schools will improves. Autocratic and transactional leadership styles should be encouraged by the government and principals even though is low is has a significant relationship with school effectiveness.