Abstract:
Leadership is an important aspect in nation building. In education, the principal’s leadership styles often have massive influence on the KCSE performance in schools. The main aim of the study was to do an examination on the influence of selected Principal’s leadership styles on the performance of students during K.C.S.E. in public secondary schools in Narok South Sub- County in Kenya. The study sought to identify the leadership styles of Principals in public secondary schools in Narok South Sub- County, and to establish the influence of the selected Principals’ leadership styles on KCSE performance. The study is of significance in improving the management and performance of public schools. The research design for this study was descriptive survey. The study covered 13 public secondary schools from Narok South Sub- County, 130 teachers and 13 principals. The choice of teachers and Principals was appropriate, as they were familiar with the concept of leadership styles. Stratified sampling procedure was used when selecting the schools whereas Smith sampling formula was used when selecting 130 teachers. Simple random sampling was then applied to select two teachers from each of the five departments in every school namely; Mathematics, Languages, Sciences, Humanities, and Technical. Two questionnaires sets were used during the process of collecting data, one for teachers and another one for Principal. Descriptive statistics was used in analyzing the data before summarizing by use of chi-square and ANOVA. The findings of this research revealed that Autocratic, Democratic, and Laissez-faire leadership styles were commonly used with preference given to democratic style of leadership. From the findings, the research further revealed that one Principal used hybrid leadership style that is a combination of autocratic and democratic styles and that the other three selected leadership styles influence performance in KCSE examinations in public secondary schools with democratic having positive influence. The study further recommends that Principals should use more of democratic leadership styles as it is associated with good performance in KCSE. In view of the study’s limitations and delimitations, the researcher suggested room for further research be conducted on the influence of level of motivation of teachers on K.C.S.E. performance of students.
Keywords: Leadership, Leadership Styles, Principals, Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations, Performance, Public Secondary Schools.
