Transformational Leadership Style of Principals in Human Resource Management in Public Secondary Schools
Chapter One
Purpose of the Study
This purpose of the study was to examine the impact of public secondary school principal’s transformational leadership on student academic success in Port Harcourt.
Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study were to:
- Find the extent to which the principal’s inspirational motivation influence student success in secondary schools in Port Harcourt.
- Explore the extent to which the principal’s intellectual stimulation influence examination attainment at secondary schools in Port Harcourt.
- Examine the extent to which the principal’s individualized consideration influence student excellence at secondary schools in Port Harcourt.
- Establish the extent to which the principal’s idealized influence scoring at secondary schools in Port Harcourt.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The concept of Leadership, Transformational Leadership and Transformational Leadership in School setup are discussed in this chapter.
Introduction
Literature is here reviewed looking into the idea of transactional and transformational leadership in schools. Literature review on leadership in school is focused on with a deeper interest in the contribution of transformational leadership in academic achievement. In studying the literature on transformational leadership in schools, the review considers earlier studies done on the extent to which transformational leadership correlates with academic performance secondary schools.
The Concept of Leadership
There exist very many definitions of leadership. Many scholars that have studied leadership have made an attempt to define the concept (Stogdill, 1973). Same observation was recorded by Bass (1981) that close to as many definitions as people who have studied leadership exist. In most definitions however, it is clear that leadership has the component of follower and leader. Traits, behaviours, relationships, and positions have been used to define leadership.
According to Blanchard (1988) leadership is the process of mobilizing individuals to achieve a set of goals. As defined by Gibson (1985), leadership is defined as an attempt at mobilizing individuals, through a clear feedback mechanism, for the achievements of set goals and objectives. Cooper (1997) posit that, successful turn-around is 70% to 90% leadership and only 10% to 30% management. According to Kroontz (2005) leadership is the process of influencing individuals to voluntarily move towards the attainment of an objective.
According to Koontz (2005) leadership defines the expectations of the future and aligns the workforce to vision, mission and objectives of the organization, challenges notwithstanding.
According to Cannice (2013), leading is influencing people so as to contribute to organizational goals and objectives. Leadership can also be defined as the interpersonal element of managing a group or followers. Leadership is the interaction of group members that most of time entails a reorganization of circumstances, expectations and viewpoints of the individuals (Bass, 1990). In any grouping, there is always need for a leader. Leaders will not be without followers. In meeting their needs and desires, followers will find a leader who can avail means and opportunities to meet them. The concepts, processes of motivation,
leadership styles and communication bring about leadership. Setting directions, exercising power and authority are core functions of leadership (Northouse 2007). Leadership determines the failures and success of an organization and therefore very crucial. According to Drucker (2007) a company’s success is as a result of leader’s success in achieving employee commitment and job satisfaction. Without the ability of a leader to promote innovation and creativity, a decrease on organizational performance is inevitable (Mohamed, 2015). He further asserts that stimulating the employee to high performance and challenging them to review their way of perceiving and interpreting situations often improve organizational performance
According to Shikada (2011) appropriate leadership disposition is important in the creation and improvement of awareness in organizations. The way a leader give support to organizational followers determines employee behaviour and job commitment levels. Leaders need to provide a clear direction in as far as organizational rules are concerned. He further assert that transformational leaders look out for the needs of the followers to address them.
Understanding the motives and meeting the expectations of the followers is a critical element of a transformational leader. According to Indra (2013) staff perform significantly better with practice of transformational leadership. This was in agreement with Yukl (2006) who posit that deployment of transformational leadership style in an organization improves job performance. Agreeing that transformational leadership is give desirable organizational results, Edoka (2012) suggested the adoption transformational leadership in Africa to help improve performance of the civil servants as Ayo (2009) agreed transformational leadership is much needed at corporates in Africa.
Transformational leaders is majorly insistent of a vision and the dynamic engagement of the followers. Transformational leadership emphasizes follower intrinsic motivation and self- development. A quintessential transformational leaders aims at promoting the follower to a upper level of achievement and ideals with the aim of attaining a unified purpose (Hughes, 2016). Such is a leader that inspires commitment through vision sharing (Bass, 1999). This is a leader who guides and transforms the organization to their central mission Being heavily people oriented transformational leadership fits well in the education sector which is all about people.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
Research design and sampling procedure are discussed in this chapter. Research instruments, data collection and data analysis procedures are also discussed.
Research Design
The study employed a descriptive survey research based on the perceptions of teachers and school heads in public secondary schools in Port Harcourt-sub County. This survey design was fitting for this kind of study as it provided a quantitative description of perceptions of the sample population on a Likert scale. Descriptive research method was selected as it would help describe principal’s qualities as perceived by self and others without making accurate prediction of the outcome or determination of cause and effect. Descriptive data collection method could be observational, case-study or survey (Jackson, 2009). This study used survey method that utilized Likert scale to have the respondents describe leadership attributes of the principal on a quantitative five point scale. This method was found appropriate as it was both cost and time efficient. Using a structured questionnaire, it made data analysis more accurate from the respondent and less subjective from survey administrator. Data collected on Likert scale was easier to digitize and analyse statistically using MS Excel and SPSS. For data gathering, the study deployed a Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) developed by Burns (1985) and updated by Bass (2002). MLQ was adopted and modified to include respondents’ demographics for study analysis. Correlational analysis was done to measure the relationship between components of Principal’s transformational leadership traits and behaviours, academic performance and other confounding variables.
CHAPTER FOUR:
DATA ANALYSIS
Introduction
This chapter look into data analysis with the aim to study the interaction between principal’s transformational leadership characteristics and student academic performance. The chapter considers the demographic data of respondents, self-assessment, others assessment, confounding variables and hypotheses test. The aim of the study was to determine the extent to which transformational leadership attributes of public secondary school principals influence students’ academic performance in Port Harcourt sub-county. NECO performance data for each school for most resent three years were collected from the Nigeria National Examinations Council through the SCDE. Respondents data was collected using MLQ self-assessment and others assessment forms. The data is here analysed.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Discussions
This research study aimed at checking the impact of principals’ transformational leadership style on secondary school students’ academic performance in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria. The study had four research objectives, aligned to answer the research question. The demographic characteristics revealed that majority of the principals were male, most of whom were forty six to fifty years of age. Most of the principals had a bachelor’s degree compared to those who had master’s degree. Majority of them had stayed in their respective schools between zero to eight years.
Idealized Influence on Academic Performance
The first objective aimed at determining the extent to which principal’s idealized influence affect academic performance of secondary schools in Port Harcourt. Linear regression data analysis results revealed that idealized influence produced significant effect on student performance of students. Idealized influence yielded a correlation of 31.7% with academic performance. Additionally, the r-square value indicated that a principal’s idealized influence explained 10.0% of the total variation in academic performance. The regression model was significant in explaining the relationship between the variables, F = 12.073, p = 0.049 < 0.05. A unit increase in principal’s idealized influence led to an increase in the academic performance of students by 6.1%. From these results, leading by example is evidently a positive predictor of good academic performance. A leader with idealized influence builds trust with the subordinates while followers develop confidence in their leader (Schieltz, 2018). Followers easily follow where an exemplary leader emulates. These findings agree with (Groot, 2008) who observed that idealized influence is a significant promoter of employee belonging and performance. Although (Cheung, 2009) termed charisma as the most important element influencing employee satisfaction, this study finds idealized influence as the least contributor to positive academic performance with an increase of 10% for each unit increase. Same applies to Pinto & Slevin (2008) who noted that a project managers who exercises transformational leadership and particularly idealized influence enjoys better project implementation and completion.
Conclusions
The study concludes that principals’ idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration had positive impacts on the academic performance of students. Transformational leadership therefore was found to positively impact performance of the students in secondary schools.
The study also revealed that principal’s gender and duration of stay at a school had significant impacts on the academic performance of students. Age and educational level were not significant factor of student performance.
Findings also revealed that the most of the schools in Port Harcourt were sub-county schools. Most of the principles were male while majority were aged between forty six and fifty years. Majority of the principals in Port Harcourt had a Bachelor’s degree and most of them had stayed in their respective schools for between zero to eight years.
Recommendations
From the study findings and conclusions, the following recommendations were made:
- Principals should be encouraged to practice transformational leadership, so as to improve academic performance of students.
- Educational learning and development agencies should consider developing a training curriculum to train principals on Transformational
- Consideration of transformational leadership characteristics on candidates due for promotion to principal level. Significant weight should be accorded to those with high rating on transformational leadership characteristics.
Suggestions for Further Study
- Further study with higher controls on confounding variables is recommended. Study of transformational leadership and performance within same gender, age, education level, duration of stay and school type will yield less confounded
- Further study in more sub-counties should be considered in order to get a national picture on the impact of principal’s transformational leadership styles on student’s academic
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