INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIPS OF AUTONOMY IN DECISION-MAKING, EMPOWERMENT, AND SCHOOL LEADERSHIP WITH SOCIO-PROFESSIONAL VARIABLES: A STUDY ABOUT PUBLIC SCHOOL LEADERS IN PAKISTANThis paper investigates the school leaders’ autonomy in decision-maki

Abstract

This paper investigates the school leaders’ autonomy in decision-making, empowerment, and school leadership. Furthermore, it finds out their relationships with socio-professional variables i.e. gender, age, academic qualification, teaching experience, and leadership experience. Using quantitative method, data was gathered through questionnaires. The sample consisted of 252 school leaders belonging to five different cities in Pakistan, The school leaders reported the highest mean value in empowerment (4.04), followed by school leadership (3.67) and autonomy in decisionmaking (3.63). When it came to correlational analysis; gender, academic qualification, and leadership experience did not have a statistically significant relationship with autonomy in decision-making, empowerment, or school leadership. Age and teaching experience turned out to be the most influential as they had a statistically significant correlation with autonomy in decision-making and empowerment. These findings were a little surprising as both age and teaching experience had a statistically significant correlation with autonomy in decisionmaking and empowerment, but leadership experience did not. The study suggests that school leaders in Pakistan should be provided with more autonomy in decision-making and empowerment so that they can play a better and more effective role in school development