Influence of head teachers’ leadership styles on learner academic performance in selected secondary schools in Manyinga district of North Western province, Zambia.

The Headteacher as the chief executive of a school is responsible for the quality performance in
the school. He or she bears the ultimate responsibility for the overall performance, proficiency
and effectiveness of the school. His or her role is to promote high academic performance in a
school. The success of what is done in the school is mostly attributed to the Headteacher. He or
she is the pivot around which many aspects of the school revolve, being the person in charge of
every detail of running the school, be it academic or administrative. Schools can make a difference
to learner achievement and the Head teachers leadership style is one which can determine the
success or the failure of the school programmes. It is therefore important that the performance of
a school is appraised against the performance the person who leads it. The purpose of this study
was to investigate the effect of leadership styles of head teachers on the learner`s academic
performance in selected public secondary schools in Manyinga District.
The study attempted to find out the many leadership styles used, the relationship between school
head teacher’s leadership style and the learner`s academic achievement and finally it attempted to
establish how leadership style enhances academic performance in schools. The study was
qualitative in approach and it used a case study design. The target population was public secondary
schools in Manyinga District. Schools which had presented learners examination results from
2018 to 2020 were sampled using the purposive sampling design and thus a total of 4 head teachers,
12 teachers and 24 learners were sampled.
Two types of research instruments were used in the study to collect data and these were interviews
and focus group discussions. Qualitative data was coded using thematic analysis where it was
categorized, tabulated and arranged under themes and sub themes in relation to the many concerns
of the entire study. Finding of the study showed that head teachers leadership styles had an effect
on learner`s academic performance and no single leadership style is effective unless they are
combined. From the findings, the study recommended that head teachers should involve all the
stakeholders in decision making, head teachers and teachers should be trained in leadership and
teacher-training institutions should incorporate it in their curriculum.
Key terms: Leadership styles, Headteacher, learner, academic performance, secondary school