Principals’ leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment : Case of some secondary schools in Mezam Division.

Abstract

This study titled “Principals’ Leadership Behaviour and Teachers’ Organisational Commitment” seeks to study the leadership behaviours of principals in secondary schools. The main objective of the study is to measure the link between principals’ leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment in secondary schools. From the general research question, the researcher formulated a general hypothesis as follows; there is a relationship between principals’ leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment. Upon operationalisation, four specific hypotheses were formulated as follows: - There is a relationship between transformational leadership behaviour and teachers’ organizational commitment. - There is a relationship between transactional leadership behaviour and teachers’ organizational commitment. - There is a relationship between Nurturant leadership behaviour and teachers’ organizational commitment. - There is a relationship between participative leadership behaviour and teachers’ organizational commitment. Some of the theories that guided the study were Fiedler’s Contingency theory, the Path Goal theory, Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Making Model of Leadership and theory X and theory Y. The survey research design was used to carry out this study whereby 180 teachers were randomly selected from a population of 745 teachers drawn from six government schools, three mission schools and one lay private school in the Bamenda 2 sub division of the Mezam Division. The questionnaire was used for data collection and this data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The hypotheses were tested with the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Index. The results obtained were as follows: Hypothesis 1: Results indicate that the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Index (rxy) is 0.351 as against 0.163 at 0.05 level of significance. This shows that there is a relationship between transformational leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment. Hypothesis 2: Results show that the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Index (rxy) is 0.329 as against 0.163 at 0.05 level of significance. This shows that there is a relationship between transactional leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment. Hypothesis 3: Results indicate that the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Index (rxy) is 0.316 as against 0.163 at 0.05 level of significance. This shows that there is a relationship between nurturant leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment. Hypothesis 4: Results show that the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Index (rxy) is 0.365 as against 0.163 at 0.05 level of significance. This shows that there is a relationship between participative leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment. Based on the above results, it was concluded that there is a relationship between principals’ leadership behaviour and teachers’ organisational commitment. And as such some recommendations were made among which are the review of appointment and transfer policies of principals, organisation of leadership seminars for principals in order to improve the leadership behaviour of principals and also the motivation of committed teachers and punishment of uncommitted ones. Also, some suggestions for further studies were proposed.