Correlates of Principals Attachment Styles, Leadership Styles and Principals’ Effectiveness: The Case of Secondary Schools in Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between attachment style, leadership styles and perceived leaderships effectiveness in government secondary schools in Ethiopia. Survey research design was used. Seventeen schools were selected randomly. Using Yamana’s (1967) formula 209 teachers were selected from sample schools proportionally using systematic random sampling technique. The Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) for attachment style and The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) were used to measure leadership style and leaders’ effectiveness. The research findings indicated that there is statistically significant relationship between transformational leadership and secure; Positive weak relationship was observed between preoccupied and transactional; Fearful attachment behavior of the leader is also moderately correlates with laissez-faire leadership style; there was a significantly moderate relationship between principals’ effectiveness and secure attachment style. It was also found that there was positive but moderate level of relationship between leadership style and overall attachment styles and strong correlation between attachment styles and leadership style with perceived leadership effectiveness. A regression analysis result indicated that the four attachment style statistically significant predictor of leadership styles (transformational, transactional and laissez-faire) even if the predictive power is low. It is also recommended that future research could do similar study using a different population in different setting, with different leadership style and different type of attachment styles to determine if the findings are reliable.

Keywords: Attachment style, leadership style, principal’s effectiveness, transformational, transactional and laissez-faire.

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-7-02

Publication date: April 30^th 2020