Abstract

This research.is designed to assess the effects of the leadership style of the secondary school principals on the school improvement. It was basically descriptive research in nature and for the collection of data survey method was used. Twenty senior school leaders from the AJ&k Mirpur department and 60 senior teachers from the public sector were selected as subjects. Samples were selected using simple random sampling techniques. Two questionnaires were prepared, one for the principal and the other for the senior teachers. Mean, standard deviation, and linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The result revealed that the leadership style of the school heads greatly contributed to the progress of the school. It is recommended that the principal must understand the level of learning in his department and the ability to share leadership style with the faculty and staff in order to get the most out of the academic process.

Key Words

Effect, Leadership, Leadership Styles, School Improvement, Secondary Schools

Introduction

Leadership plays a very important role in any organization or society because leadership belongs to the individual characteristics and a strong relationship between a leader and supporter as well.   (Silva, 2014). Leadership in any organization cannot be linked to just one person; fundamentally it is the collection of different reasons.

 James (2015) recommends that leadership impact on the overall school environment this includes the leadership roles of both teachers and principal.

Basically effects of leadership are the educational climate of school, inspirational elements educators and the impact of staff development on teacher education (Haq, 2011).

 Leadership plays a vital role in every organization. The style of the leader is also important to the organization/institutional operations. The careers of education leaders are gradually improving. Educators have a better consideration of how education of the leaders plays a vital role in students’ achievement. The main focus of educational leadership is to achieve students through development, challenges, care and supportive environmental conditions conducive to student learning. Educational leadership functions can help guide the key description, responsibilities, of skilled education leaders (Nusche, 2008).

The main function of the leadership is to support, evaluate and develop the quality of teachers. Under the power of effective leadership skills, persons are able to direct and control effectively the functioning of institutions (Pont, 2008). Educational leaders must have sufficient capacity to adjust the instructional program to the local requirements of the teacher. Leaders must take steps to endorse teamwork among teachers and participate in teacher supervision, assessment and skills’ growth. Teachers should be effectively trained to understand how to meet the needs of the students. Therefore, an important goal of educational leaders is to support, assess and improve the quality of teachers (Moorman, 2008).

The second important function of leadership is goal setting, assessment and answerability. While setting goals, educational leaders need to assess the pros and cons and ensure that appropriate efforts are made to achieve them. For individuals within an educational institution, it is important to recognize their responsibilities and professional work. Policymakers need to make sure that school heads prioritize planned track, improve their ability to bring the development in school goals and achievement plans, and judge progress, and apply data for to get better practices (Pont, Nusche and Moorman, 2008).

The best leaders in the education system point out the importance of setting an example, not just words. The ivory tower can easily clarify and define rules, but this style of leadership will not have much brunt on your school. As an educator, you have a great pressure on your students. If you want students to talk friendly to each other in the hallway, you must always be friendly. If you want students to show respect, tell them what it means. This approach is both effective and powerful and can help you to teach the students the skills they need throughout their lives. Perhaps the most important feature of becoming an education leader is the belief in the power of students and education. If you don't believe in your students or colleagues, then everyone is condemned to fail (Mulford, 2002).

Azad Jammu and Kashmir are developing and struggling in the education sector. This study attempts to analyze the causes and solutions of various problems to promote the development of secondary education in AJ&K. Lack of well-trained class teachers with vision and leadership, because their selection is not based on achievement. School leaders, especially male or female principals, set the direction and build an optimistic school culture (including an optimistic school mindset) to support and enhance employees’ enthusiasm and determination to promote improvement in challenging environments. This is the reason why the current study emphasizes the influence of headmaster leading styles for a school improvement.




Objectives

1. To identify the leadership styles of secondary school heads of AJ&K.

2. To measure the effect of leadership styles of secondary school heads on school improvement.

Research Questions

1. What are the leadership styles of secondary school heads of AJ&K?

2. What are the effects of leadership styles of secondary school heads on school improvement?

Literature Review

Leadership and administration roles in schools in developing countries are common fields of study.  The reason behind this issue is to concert on top-down system-wide changes pretty than individual school changes. This system-wide modify tends to highlight preparation and investment disciplines instead of authority and managing disciplines, which may be. vital to real institutionalization of grassroots modification. Leadership attempted to examine the satisfaction level of teachers while integrating and practicing the leadership activities in educational settings. Respondents were the secondary school teachers who had got training of integrating the leadership aspects while teaching. (Hargreaves, Lieberman, Fullan and Hopkins, 1998; Hopkins, 2001).

Inspiring experiential proof suggests that the principal's leadership style can create an atmosphere that is conducive to and support the school's teaching priorities. In short, it can be said that school leaders have a major impact on school efficiency and progress (Wallace, 2002). Basically a leadership is a recognized issue in school efficiency and important for its improvement. Different researchers have their own different views on the different leadership styles and that efficiently improves school success.

Bass and Avolio (2000) give strongly support for relationship-oriented leadership to more effectively promote school improvement because it builds the desire for trust, respect and followers to achieve the same expectations and work together to achieve future goals. Each leader uses a style to manage his organization.

The bureaucratic leader is the place where the manager “book management” and everything must be done in accordance with procedures or policies. If not enclosed in the book, the manager sends them to the next cover above it. The police, not the leader, are typically the standard method. In this way, managers can retain as much power and executive power as probable. Managers do not ask workers and do not let them to give any authority. Effort needs employees to obey orders without any reason; incentive are generated by establishing prearranged rewards and punishments (Silins, 2002).

The laissez-faire leadership style also recognized as the “hands-on” style. In this style, the head provides little or no guidance and gives the member of staff as much liberty as probable. All authority gives employees who must set plans, make decisions and resolution problems; democratic leadership style is called sharing style too because it give strength to workers to take part in managerial issues. The democratic type of manager desires to let his or her employees know all the work that affects the workers and divide responsibility for supervisory and trouble solving. This style requires the leader to be the trainer of the final decision, but to meet in rank from the member of staff before making a decision (Silins, 2002).

Basically the leadership concepts provided by the theories are interrelated to each other and considered as the base of the research in the area of educational research. To gain information regarding the leadership the basic theories are needed to be examined, these theories always considered the foundation of any newly generated leadership concept. 

 Gandolfi (2016) emphasises that the leadership hold its own attributes, features and procedures to be followed. The procedures of the leadership require a director or manager to use the leadership concepts to organize and collaborate with the subordinates or the colleagues to achieve the desired aims, goals and objectives of the organization. 

The following definition was selected from these five criteria for the purpose of this research: 

A leader is a person who facilitates others and enables them to manage the activities as much as possible and enables his team to succeed and achieve the organizational goals (Winston & Patterson, 2006).

The leadership concept provides rules, values and principles followed to provide directions to the group members. The leadership also has its impacts and effects on the effectiveness of the overall process of the system.(Gandolfi & Stone, 2016).

Just as style has a good influence on leaders, so is the development of the education system. For example, a good education leader needs to have a deep understanding of him and should have confidence. You can do more when you believe in yourself. Be confident in the decisions you make, don't be nervous, and don't be afraid of others' ideas. Plan your day-to-day business approach to guide the students, teachers and colleagues in achieving their goals in the right direction. If you don't talk to others, you won't be able to lead a group of people! The best educational leaders are good communicators and know how to reach out to a wide variety of people in many different ways. For example, the principal may have a one-on-one chat with the teacher every week and send an email update every day (Mulford, 2002).

Bureaucratic Leadership

In addition, there is usually a hypothesis that in many highly bureaucratized schooling systems in developing countries, the role of the principal is relatively insignificant, not to mention other people in management positions in schools. In essence, these people are seen as workers at lower levels in a multi-tiered system. Mostly people are realizing that school improvement needs to be effectively managed at the school level. One reason is that people's expected ability is close to the expected policy impact of resisting upward changes. However, more and more positive reasons place more emphasis on management at the school level. (Therkildsen, 2000)




Autocratic leadership

Autocratic leaders, also identified as authoritarian leaders, offer clear view of what requirements to be done, when it have to be complete, and how thsese requirements must be done. There are also important differences among leaders and supporters. Leaders of dictators can make free decisions with modest or no involvement. The researchers found that under the leadership of authoritarianism, managerial were less creative. (Lewin, 2000) also found that changing from autocratic style to democratic style is more difficult than vice versa. Abuse of this style is often seen as control, uncertainty and dictatorship. Autocratic leadership is best suited for team decision-making time or the leader is the most conversant person on the team (Lewin, 2000).




Administrative Leadership

De Grauwe (2000) believes: central managers and planners. But even then, this view will no longer be true. Numerous studies have shown. the worth of instruction based mostly upon techniques that schools are accomplished and proficiency of schools to get better the quality of teaching is largely partial by the leadership of the principal, the teacher.

The latter policy argues that if the level of education is to be raised, the school must assume primary responsibility and the school must be responsible for the school's educational performance. In order to achieve this goal, management responsibilities must be delegated to the school location. In this case, the head teacher's leadership is critical and new non-traditional management skills are needed for relaxation control (De Grauwe, 2000). In this case, some people give power to the class teacher; others emphasize the empowerment of parents from side to side school boards or other educational institutions. (Therkildsen, 2000).

Despite the debate about decentralization, the traditional bureaucratic model is still deeply rooted in many developing countries. Even attempts to implement decentralization policies often hamper implementation because people do not pay enough attention or increase the understanding of key managers about the potential value of such policies (De Grauwe, 2000).




Declarative Leadership

Kythreotis, Pashiardis and Kyriakides (2010) begin the straight influence of the head's leadership style and institute society on attainment of student.

The researchers bring into being that children entrust with leadership (also recognized as laissez-faire leaders) were the smallest amount creative of the three groups. The children of this group set bold higher demands on the leaders, showed little collaboration and could not work separately. The delegate of the spokesperson gave little direction to the team members and left the decision-making authority to other staff members. Even though this style may be useful when the team members have high diploma in the specialized field, it often leads to unclear role definitions and lack of stimulus.

Dinham (2005) and Townsend (2007) The essential indicators and factors that nurture the educator leadership include partnership, teamwork, shared authorities and objectives, great prospects, professional growth, insightful preparation, and the learning of overall school. These factors also contribute in. student learning. (Eyal& Roth, 2011, Leithwood & Mascall, 2008). Murphy (2007) suggests that successful school leaders should pay special attention to ensure that teachers have different collective communication and joint working mechanisms.

Democratic and Participative leadership

Kunwar (2001) claims that democratic and participatory leadership is important for the usefulness and upgrading of schools. Iqbal (2005) originates that task-oriented and trustworthy leadership styles have a major impact on school cooperation compared to democratic and relationship-oriented leadership styles. Levine's research originate that participatory leadership, also called as democratic leadership, is often the most flourishing form of leadership. Democratic leaders offer supervision to staff members, but they also contribute in the combination and allow other team members to afford contribution. In Lewin's study, children of this group were less creative than children in the controlling group, but their participation was of superior quality. Participatory leadership encourages staff to contribute, but retains the final choice in the choice making procedure. All staff members feel that they are concerned in the process and are more enthused and creative.

Mehmood (1995) pointed out that for a successful educational leader, the first construct (task) as well as thinking (people-oriented) are imperative behaviours. These findings from different studies point to that there are some contradictions in the researchers' claims about leadership style, which successfully promotes the effectiveness and development of the school.

This contradiction may be suitable to certain cultural change in different countries. A leader who is effective in one condition may not have an effective contribution in another. One more reason for this disagreement may be dissimilar studies of different samples in different situation. Therefore, it cannot be said that an exacting leadership style can function efficiently in all situations.

Leadership styles in Pakistan

In Pakistan, the arrangement of the public school system that instructs the vast mainstream of students is alike to that of many emerging countries. It is created on a “top-down” officious form in which public schools are embarrassed from end to end federal policy decisions. However, in excess of the history decade, essential and plan improvements have been undertaken to exchange federal education systems with additional dispersed systems. Moreover, some changes have been developed under this scheme to set up mechanisms for changeable responsibility from the regional level to the district level (Shah, 2003).

With the organization of some new positions, the administrative configuration of the district-level education system has also changed. Administrative district officials (education) are liaisons for policy growth and educational development at the region level. Education officials have acquired positive powers at the school level in their school district. Given these reforms, Pakistan’s educational institutions need to be effectively led and managed at the school level, that have the power to be more encouraging for educational change and efficiently encourage school development. However, it is important to mention that a principal has a key role in the educational system.

He must be well versed in the position and surroundings of all schools, supervising teachers and coordinating with local communities; it remains unchanged in the decentralization plan. Most school principals are still recipients of policy decisions, slightly than playing a role in improving the quality of school development. In totalling, some researches related to this issue have been accepted out in the background of Pakistan (Mahmood, 1995; Kunwar, 2001; Iqbal, 2005).

Methodology

The current study was descriptive in nature and the survey method was used for the collection of data. Population of the study comprised of secondary school heads and senior teachers from public sector schools in Mipur Division of AJ&K. Simple random sampling technique was used for the selection of sample from the population. 20 secondary school heads and 60 senior teachers were taken as a sample. Self-developed questionnaires based on five point Likert scale was used to check the Leadership styles and school improvement at secondary level. Reliability of the questionnaires was found through Cronbach Alpha, the value found .816 and .753 respectively. Mean, standard deviation and Linear Regression analysis were used to analyse the data collected from the respondents.

Results

Table 1. Mean of Leadership styles of School Heads

Leadership styles	N	Mean	Std. Deviation
Vision	20	16.8000	1.57614
Coaching	20	15.4000	2.83586
Affiliation	20	13.9000	3.21018
Democracy	20	14.0000	4.62260
Pacesetting	20	14.2000	3.76410
Commanding	20	15.4500	2.72368

 

Table 1 indicates the mean values of leadership styles of secondary school heads. This table reveals that mean value of vision style (M= 16.8000, SD=1.57614) was higher than other leadership styles. The result revealed that school heads mostly adopted vision leadership style. as compared to other leadership styles.

 

Table 2. Model Summary of Leadership Styles and School Improvement

Model	R	R- Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	.635a	.404	.371	2.03441

a. Predictors: (Constant), leadership style

 

The table shows the model summary of regression analysis of leadership styles of university heads. According to the model summary the correlation R was .635^a and R- square was .404. This table revealed that there was positive and moderate relationship between leadership styles of school heads and school improvement.

 

Table 3. ANOVA Summary of Leadership Styles and School Improvement

Model		Sum of Squares	Df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	232.744	1	232.744	12.185	.003a
	Residual	343.806	18	19.100
	Total	576.550	19

a.        Predictors: (Constant), leadership style

b.        Dependent Variable: job satisfaction

 

ANOVA summary of leadership style and school improvement was illustrated in table. This table revealed that the regression equation was significant F(1, 18)=12.185, p=003^a. Hence, leadership style was a significant predictor to predict school improvement.

 

Table 4. Coefficients Summary of Leadership Styles and School Improvement

	Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients
Model	B	Std.Error	Beta	T	Sig
1 (Constant)	25.797	7.101		3.633	.002
Leadership style	.274	.078	.635	3.491	.003

a. Dependent Variable: job satisfaction

This table shows the coefficient summary of model. It depicted that value of coefficient leadership style was .274, its t-value was 3.491which was significant at the .05 level as p=.003. It means there was significant difference between leadership styles of heads and school improvement.

Discussion

The results of this study point to the association between independent and dependent variables. The study also shows that leadership styles have a important impact on school improvement. Sherman (2003) pointed out that leadership is to power a group of people toward an established general goal. Leadership is also highly deliberate. In his research, the average value of the leadership style vision is higher than other styles (Rather Gandolfi & Stone (2016)) also emphasizes that leadership requires a deep understanding of people's role in the ultimate mission and organizational vision (Gandolfi & Stone, 2016).

The discussion in the study concluded that choosing the right leadership style can guide educational institutions to achieve the desired goals and improve the schools. Statistical analysis shows that the mixed results of the most of the variables indicate a significant positive correlation with each other.

Conclusion

Following conclusions were drawn:

1. The mean value of leadership styles vision of heads is higher as compare to other leadership styles.

2. Mostly people used vision as a leadership styles as compare to other leadership styles.

3. It is also concluded that the nature of leadership in schools influences. the school improvement as well as the conduct of the principals.

Recommendations

The following suggestions were proposed.

1. Leadership strategies may also be integrated to the active leadership approaches such as transactional, transformational and servant leadership. 

2. Future studies may assess the association by using other styles such as transactional leadership, transformational leadership and servant leadership. 

3. The provision made for heads to upgrade their training in educational leadership to avoid the on-ground leadership management challenges being faced by both the heads and institutions.

4. The higher education institutions and admin staff must investigate alternatives with the intention of making programs more relevant to the needs of the heads for school improvement.

5. The heads may facilitate and manage the mechanism to use leadership and team management strategies effectively to enhance the job satisfaction of the teachers which could ultimately result in academic achievement of the learners.

6. The heads must be equipped with effective communication skills to convey effectively departmental values and standards to the subordinates and institutions.

7. FDP (Faculty Development Program) may integrate leadership for the heads of department in each academic sector to avail the advantages of leadership and team management strategies.

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