Leadership Style and Teachers Commitment in Public Primary Schools in Bomet County, Kenya

Abstract

The objective of this study was twofold. First was to establish the leadership style adopted by head teachers in public primary schools in Bomet County. Second was to investigate the influence of head teachers’ leadership style on teachers’ commitment. 100 teachers from twenty schools in three sub-counties participated in the survey. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Teachers perceived their head teachers to practice transformational leadership more than transactional leadership approaches. The overall commitment of teachers was moderate. Affective and normative commitment was moderate implying that teachers fairly identified and feel obliged to continue serving with the school or teaching profession. The low mean scores of Affective Commitment imply that teachers have low appreciation and emotional attachment to the schools or teaching profession. The study further revealed positive correlations between a transformational leadership and normative commitment of teachers. There was also a positive correlation between transactional leadership style and affective commitment. The low correlation between variables was attributed to other factors which may be overwhelming such as the poor working environment and lack or limited teaching tools. It is recommended that a combination of both transformational and transactional leadership attributes should be used in order to bring out the best positive influence on teachers commitment. It is further recommended that the working environment in public primary schools be improved by provision of basic facilities and tools. Institutional Leadership will have substantive impact in an environment where basic and minimum facilities are provided.

Keywords: Leadership style, Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Laissez-faire leadership, Commitment.