RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEADTEACHERS’ LEADERSHIP STYLES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KILIFI COUNTY

Abstract

The role of head teacher is to provide leadership that inspires and motivates teachers to achieve high academic performance of students. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between head teachers' leadership styles and school academic performance in public secondary schools in Kilifi County. The study was carried out in Kilifi County which has persistently registered low academic performance. Factors leading to this dismal performance have not been adequately investigated and well understood. The study was guided by the following objectives; to identify types of leadership styles used by head teachers’ in public secondary schools in Kilifi County, to find out the relationship between head teachers’ leadership style and students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Kilifi County and to establish head teachers’ leadership style as perceived by teachers and school academic performance. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The target population comprised head teachers, teachers and support staff. The sample size included one hundred and twenty head teachers, nine hundred and six teachers and six hundred support staff members. The study was guided by Theory X and Y which were proposed by Douglass Macgregor, an American social psychologist ‘The Human Side of Enterprises’ (Macgregor, 1960). The data was elicited by use of questionnaires and interview schedule. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the quantitative data after which findings were presented in frequency tables, graphs and pie charts which were used concurrently with the chi-square test. T- Test was used to establish the relationship between head teachers’ leadership styles and academic performance. Qualitative data was analysed through content analysis. The study revealed that the head teachers of public secondary schools in Kilifi County mostly use democratic and transformational leadership traits in their management of schools. Also, head teacher’s leadership styles in public secondary schools in Kilifi County influence school academic performance in KCSE and teachers’ perception of their head teachers’ leadership styles is that to large extent they occasionally made their attitudes clearly known to their staff implying that they kept school management issues to themselves, hence reflecting dictatorial kind of mentality when managing public secondary schools in Kilifi County. Also, teachers perceived that head teachers always emphasise meeting of deadlines, they also see to it that the work of the staff is coordinated. However, teachers also perceived that few head teachers worked without schedules. The study recommended that the head teachers should improve their leadership styles. Head teachers should practise more of democratic and transformational leadership since they enhance general performance of staff and students’ academic performance, head teachers and other school administrative stakeholders should learn to take their teachers’ perception of the school leadership style seriously since it may impact on the academic performance of students.