The leadership style of school principal and performance of teachers

Abstract

Research in leadership is inconclusive and inconsistent throughout many decades. Some leaders are highly devoted to using a democratic leadership style and have achieved remarkable success in their field. On the other hand, some are using an autocratic leadership style, had considerable success with their ideology and approach. Hence, it is challenging to conclude that a particular leadership style is upright. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the influence of the Leadership style of school principal on Tecahers' performance. Primary and Secondary data were collected for this purpose using structured Questinaire; the data were gathered from a sample of 257 Teachers from the Kalmunai Educational Zone that consists of Sammanthurai, Kalmuani, Akkaraipathu, and Thirukovil Educational Zones. The simple random sampling technique was to select the appropriate respondents, and the data were then analyzed using SPSS software with correlation and regression analysis. Findings revealed that democratic and change-oriented leadership styles were significantly influenced the performance of school teachers. A notable finding of this study was that the autocratic leadership style was not an influential factor for teachers' performance. However, the findings further revealed no significant difference between the demographic characteristics of teachers and their performance. Interestingly, principals' demographic characteristics play a significant role in accomplishing tasks from the teachers. This study contributes to several stakeholders such as the Provincial Education Office and the Ministry of Education in Sri Lanka. The implication of this study is relevant for the scholar who pursues their work in leadership and employee performance.