Head Teachers’ Prevalent Leadership Styles and Teachers’ Performance in Selected Private Secondary Schools in Buikwe District (Uganda)

Abstract

Due to the multiplicity of variables that come into play to explain employee performance, recent research has questioned the role of prevalent leadership styles in teacher performance. Inspired by such narratives, the current study set out to examine the prevalence of different leadership styles among head teachers, and to relate the prevalent styles to teacher performance in selected private secondary schools in Buikwe District. Using a correlational cross-sectional survey design, the study subjected 165 teachers and ten head teachers to a questionnaire and interview guide, respectively. Results indicated that teamwork is the most prevalently used leadership style, and that it has a positively significant but weak relationship with teacher performance. The study’s strongest contribution lies in its extension of leadership style narratives to a rural private secondary school setting (in Uganda), and its identification of the teamwork style’s limitations, its prevalence and immense value in educational administration and management notwithstanding