Principals Leadership Styles and Gender Influence on Teachers Morale in Public Secondary Schools

Abstract

The study investigated the perception of teachers on the influence of principals’ leadership styles and gender on teacher morale. Four research questions and four research hypotheses guided the study. An ex-post facto research design was adopted in the study. Through the simple random sampling technique a total of 72 principals and 2,506 in 72 public secondary schools were drawn from the three education zones of Delta State. Two standardized research instruments namely the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and the Purdue Teacher Opinionnaire were adapted and used to obtain information on principals’ leadership styles and teacher morale respectively. Teacher morale was measured with regard to five teacher morale factors which are teacher rapport with principal, rapport amongst teachers, satisfaction with teaching, teacher status and teacher load. Answers to the research questions were analyzed using the simple descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation while the t-test was the statistical tool used to address the research hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed leadership styles of principals and gender jointly influenced teacher morale. However, the transformational leadership style and male principals had a greater influence on teacher morale. The major findings of the study were discussed, implications highlighted while recommendations were made.

Keywords: Leadership styles, teacher morale, gender, principals, teachers, secondary schools.