Principal leadership styles as correlates of secondary school teachers work attitude in South Senatorial District of Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between principal leadership style and teachers work attitude. It adopted the descriptive survey. The population of the study consisted of 125 public secondary school principals and 1,523 teachers in the South Senatorial District of Edo State, Nigeria. Of the seven Local Government Areas, three were sampled for analysis while 175 teachers were sub-set of the study. Three research questions were raised. While one was answered directly, the other two were hypothesised. Descriptive statistics and Pearson moment correlation coefficient were used to analyse data. While 60% of respondents believe their principals used democratic leadership style, 25.6% of respondents believe their principals employ an autocratic leadership style whereas 18 teachers (14.4%) feel their principals are neither democratic nor autocratic but laissez-faire in their style of leadership. Thus, the study found that secondary school principals in sampled schools predominantly employed a democratic leadership style. Perhaps the newfound democratic governance in the country since 1999 may be influencing the democratic leadership disposition of the secondary school management. Suggestions were made to sustain the team spirit existing in the public secondary schools in the district.