The relationship between management styles of headteachers and staff commitment: A case of secondary schools in Kamuli district

The relationship between management styles of head teachers and staff commitment: A case of secondary schools in Kamuli district

 

 

Literature Overview

 

(1989) describe leadership style as the manner a leader leads, which is reflected in some of the things head teachers do which include: how they communicate leadership, exercise power and authority and the effect these have on teachers and other school staff members. Based on the above definition, leadership style may be described as the way a leader influences his/her followers either by commanding or motivating them to achieve the set goals. Aside, proponents have asserted that the manner a leader leads determines whether he/she will accomplish school goals or maintain positive relationships with staff members. (1991 ) opines that leadership style is determined by what the head teacher does to motivate his/her subordinates to put in their best to accomplish the set school goals. He observes that some leaders set a higher value on task accomplishment while some, on maintaining good interpersonal relationship, the head teachers’ motives and the school’s aims influence the manner the head teachers run the school.  (1993) observe that a leader develops his/her style over period of time from experience, education and training, the authors claim that leadership style is more of how the subordinates perceive their leader’s behavior than how the leader thinks he behaves because his/her subordinates will treat him/her based on how they perceive his/her behavior in various situations. There implies that teachers’ assessment of the head teachers’ leadership styles is most likely to be the head teachers’ styles of leading the school.

 

The Problem

 

The research is based on the traditional management styles, that is, democratic, laissez faire, autocratic and authoritative styles and the one problem that is known in this research study may concern to the conceptualization of commitment, it can be how commitment works in the management styles of head teachers and which leadership style is of effective usage from within secondary schools in Kamuli district, Uganda, also lack of relevant and up to date literature has been research challenge

 

Research Aims/Objectives

1. To be able to find out, recognize as well as assess relationship between management styles of head teachers and staff commitment: A case of secondary schools in Kamuli district

2. To provide basis of management styles in relation to staff commitment

3. To present case studies in lieu to important keywords in research

4. To craft valuable research methods to hand direct information and responses, present reliable literature studies of the focused topic

5. To evaluate hypothesis if it is valid, reliable and applicable or not

 

Hypothesis

1. There is positive relationship between management styles of head teachers and staff commitment

2. There is negative relationship between management styles of head teachers and staff commitment

 

Questions

1. What is meant by management/leadership styles? How can head teachers adopt to these leadership styles for better and effective school management?

2. What is staff commitment about? Any direct relationship to each of the management style likes, democratic? Discuss

3.  How are kamuli secondary schools affected by traditional management styles? Any specific style that is appropriate in the education context?

4. How such different styles influence the commitment of secondary school head teachers? Have basis on possible Kamuli case

5. How is education status in Uganda? Does it have proper management and commitment grounds? Explain

6. How each of the management style similar and different from each other? Discuss each of the styles (democratic, laissez faire, autocratic and authoritative)

 

Research Methodology

For research methodology, the need to adopt semi-structured interview method that places in open, ended questions constituting of various management styles assessment as well as commitment, the sample size will deal to a total of 50 head teachers serving at secondary schools in Kamuli district, surveying them in terms of their leadership styles they used in the classroom setting by means of percentile ratio of every management styles and rank those from highest to lowest from within survey questionnaire assimilation, the outcome of this research will conform to the case study analysis pertaining to the situation found in Kamuli, as research information and data will be analyzed by means of five pint scale system, the Likert scaling method in order to ensure brevity of the questionnaire that might have high response rate by teacher participants, to ensure that every question were relevant to the culture and background characteristics of the country. The first part of the questionnaire are to be administered to the head teachers including background questions related to them, second part of the questionnaire will be asking questions related to leadership styles as indicator that have influenced the commitment of these head teachers to utilize certain democratic style and others upon responding to statements with 1=strongly agree, 2=agree, 3=neutral, 4=strongly disagree and 5=disagree in research approach. The third part of the questionnaire will be asking head teachers several questions related to level of staff commitment along with some aspects of teaching profession, including their ability to influence students’ success and attitudes, their contribution to Kamuli’s school and education system and involvement in school decision making of other education authorities. The questions are to be measured through Likert scale ranging from 1-5 for each questions, secondary school teachers will have to respond by selecting each number options on the scale.