principal's leadership behaviour as a determinant of effectiveness

Europan Journal of Educational Studies 2(1), 2010
make the society lose confidence in the system. For instance, the students’ academic performance which
members of the society used mainly to measure the effectiveness of schools has witnessed unprecedented set
back. Ajayi (2002), WAEC (2007), Adeyemi (2008) have shown in their studies the extent of poor performance
of students in public examination. The most recent was seen in the Punch Newspaper (September 27, 2008)
where it was reported that 83% of the candidates that sat for May/June 2008 West African Senior School
Certificate Examination (WASSCE) failed. This is disheartening.
Besides, it has again been observed that students of secondary schools lack morals. High rate of indiscipline
which manifests in form of absence from school, lateness to school, stealing, insubordination to school
authority, smoking, cheating in examinations and among others are daily happenings in the schools. This raises
a fundamental question as to the extent to which the schools are producing disciplined or morally upright school
leavers into the larger society. Oladele (2003) argued that the cause of the moral decadence among the youth is
traceable to the non-teaching of ethics in the secondary schools.
Personal experience has also shown that very few secondary school leavers can communicate effectively or
exhibit evidence of good and solid education background. It appears the students lack requisite technical skills
to be able to function effectively in the society. All these scenario are pointers to the fact that the secondary
school system is in a state of despair.
Several factors have been attributed to the perceived ineffectiveness of the secondary schools among which are
teacher factor, parental factor, economic factor, societal factor and principals’ leadership behaviour but this
study was limited to the principals’ leadership behaviour as a potent factor for school ineffectiveness. It has
been observed that many secondary school principals do not involve their subordinates in their daily routine
administrative duties and as a result do a lot of things themselves.
Personal experience have shown that many principals of secondary schools do not provide good leadership of
the school system. Some do not motivate their teachers very well, some do not even relate very well with the
teachers let alone students. It appears some member of teaching staff do not feel comfortable with the ways their
principals behave in schools. This seems to be the reasons why most teachers put up non-challant attitude
towards their job and consequently leads to ineffectiveness of the schools.
The behaviour of leaders has been identified as one of the major factors influencing the productivity of
subordinates in any organization in which the school system is not an exemption (Babayemi, 2006). Ibukun
(1997) remarked that without leadership, an organization can best be described as a scene of confusion and
chaos. According to the author, when leadership in an organization is effective, there is progress, but when the
leadership is defective, the organization declines and decays.
Purkey and Smith (1983), Cruz (1995) submitted that in order to build strong teacher commitment towards the
realization of school goals, principals must provide strong, directive leadership in setting and developing school
goals, creating a unity of purpose, facilitating communication and managing instruction Weber (1971) and
Scheerens and Creemers (1989) submitted that strong leadership embodied in the principal was instrumental in
setting the tone of the school.
It can be inferred from the foregoing that principal’s leadership behaviour has a very positive relationship with
school effectiveness. It was again this backdrop that the present study found out the relationship between
principal’s leadership behaviour and effectiveness of secondary schools in Nigeria.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study was to find out the relationship between principal’s leadership behaviour and the
effectiveness of secondary schools in Nigeria. The study investigated the extent of principal’s leadership
behaviour in the secondary schools and the extent of effectiveness of the schools in the three domains of
learning. Based on the findings, recommendations were made on how to improve the effectiveness of the
secondary schools.
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