Principals’ Leadership Styles and Student Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examined principals’ leadership style and students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Ekiti State, Nigeria. It was a correlational research by design. The study population comprised all the 175 secondary schools in the State. Out of these, a sample of 140 secondary schools were selected through the simple random sampling technique. Out of the 7,284 teachers’ in the schools, 2,560 teachers were selected for the study through the stratified random sampling technique. Two instruments were used to collect data for the study. These were a questionnaire and an inventory. The data collected were analyzed using frequency counts, percentages, mean and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. It was found that the democratic
style of leadership was the prevalent leadership style used by school principals in the State. The autocratic leadership style was found to be significantly related with students’ academic performance. It was recommended that principals should endeavour to use the autocratic leadership style in enhancing better academic performance of students in their schools.