Leadership Styles and Teacher Discipline in Private Secondary Schools in Kakamega County, Kenya

Abstract

Educating a nation remains the most vital strategy for the development of the society throughout the developing world. This study aimed at establishing the effect of private secondary school principals’ leadership styles on teacher discipline in Kakamega County. The specific objectives pursued were: to assess the effect of leadership styles on the level of teacher performance; to determine the effect of organizational factors on teacher discipline; and to establish the effect of organizational factors on the relationship between leadership styles and teacher discipline in private secondary schools. The study was guided by path–goal theory of leader effectiveness model. Hypotheses were statistically tested at an Alpha level of 0.05. The population of the study comprised 203 teachers drawn from 11 private secondary schools classified into two homogeneous sub-groups. School principals were purposively sampled while a proportionate factor at 60 percent per school was computed to get the number of teachers. A simple random sampling was then used to select teachers. From the sample frame, 140 respondents were selected. The study revealed a significant and positive effect of leadership style on teacher discipline with 26.4 percent of teacher discipline being explained by leadership styles. Equally, organizational factors had a significant positive aggregate effect on the teacher discipline with 55.2 percent of changes in the teacher discipline being attributed to organizational factors