THE IMPACT OF THE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
Precisely, the chapter will be considered in three sub-headings:
- Conceptual Framework
- Theoretical Framework
2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The Concept of Leadership
Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of a group of people by a leader in efforts towards goal achievement (Nworgu, 1991).It involves a force that initiates actions in people and the leader. It could also be described as the ability to get things done with the assistance and cooperation of other people within the school system. Mbiti (2007) posits that leadership has to do with the execution of policies and decisions which help to direct the activities of an organization towards the achievement of its specified aims. Leadership is also seen as the process whereby one person influences others to do something of their own volition, neither because it is required nor because of the fear of consequences of non compliance (Okumbe, 1998).At the core of most definitions of leadership are two functions: providing direction and exercising influence. Each of these functions can be carried out in different ways and such differences distinguish many models of leadership from one another. According to Yukl, 1994 leadership influences the interpretation of events for followers, the choice of objectives for the group or organization, the organization of work activities to accomplish objectives, the motivation of followers to achieve the objectives, the maintenance of cooperative relationships and teamwork and the enlistment of support and cooperation from people outside the group or organization.
Leadership and Organizational Achievement
This is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization of which they are members. Leadership is a vital element in the social relationships of groups at work. These groups need leaders and the leaders need followers. Cole (1993) explains leadership is a dynamic process at work in a group whereby one individual over a particular period of time, and in a particular organizational context influences the other group members to commit themselves freely to the achievement of group tasks or goals. From the above definitions we find that leadership as a dynamic process determines the success of any organization. Effective leaders influence the group members towards the achievement of group goals by gaining the group’s commitment to these goals (Cole, 1993). Effective leaders will drive their organizations towards success. Their leadership performance leads to the achievement of organizational goals, a high degree of commitment to these goals by the group and a high level of group member satisfaction. According to Ukeje, Akabogu and Ndu (1992) the quality of leadership in an organization, be it religious, social, business military or otherwise affects to a large extent the success or failure of that organization. The function of organizational leadership therefore is to influence the group toward the achievement of group goals by planning, organizing, directing and integrating the institutional demands and the needs of members in a way that will be both productive and individually fulfilling. Leadership is supposed to increase group morale and motivate members for them to work hard towards achieving organizational goals and success. Rules and regulations regarding group behavior alone cannot lead to success even if they are enforced by the use of position power of the head. Devoted service and maximum utilization of their group personal ability comes through the exercise of organizational leadership which raises group morale and also motivates them to perform maximally.
Concept Of Management
Like any concept, management can be defined in different ways. It should be noted that books and articles on practical management and empirical research rarely define management at all. In contrast, most textbooks used in management education do. Table 1 provides a collection of management definitions.In this list, three definitory elements continue to reoccur. The first one is Henry Fayol’s (1916) task catalog of planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling (with “commanding” replaced by “leading” in modern definitions). As one textbook states: “His general statement about management, in many ways, still remains valid after almost a century and has only been adapted by the more recent writers” (Cole & Kelly 2015, p. 18). The second element is utilizing people or, less constrained, resources in general. According to a popular quote often attributed to Mary Parker Follett, management is “the art of getting things done through people”1, a definitory element some of the following sources explicitly build on. However, most textbooks speak of resources in general. However, not a single source listed in Table 1 mentions any other object of managerial influence than resources. The third reoccurring element is that management aims to achieve results or goals, the latter of which is never specified. On the whole, the literature review reveals a surprising lack of substance. Almost none of the definitions display a specific view of management. Instead they contain mere variations of a few outlines introduced a century ago, which might be comfortably familiar, but are all rather questionable, as will be shown. At the same time, they neglect substantial characteristics of the management concept that are necessary for understanding its meaning and delineate it from similar concepts like governance, human resource management and leadership. These shortcomings and necessary addendums will be addressed below.
Leadership and Organizational Achievement
This is the ability of an individual to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization of which they are members. Leadership is a vital element in the social relationships of groups at work. These groups need leaders and the leaders need followers. Cole (1993) explains leadership is a dynamic process at work in a group whereby one individual over a particular period of time, and in a particular organizational context influences the other group members to commit themselves freely to the achievement of group tasks or goals.From the above definitions we find that leadership as a dynamic process determines the success of any organization. Effective leaders influence the group members towards the achievement of group goals by gaining the group’s commitment to these goals (Cole, 1993). Effective leaders will drive their organizations towards success. Their leadership performance leads to the achievement of organizational goals, a high degree of commitment to these goals by the group and a high level of group member satisfaction. According to Ukeje, Akabogu and Ndu (1992) the quality of leadership in an organization, be it religious, social, business military or otherwise affects to a large extent the success or failure of that organization. The function of organizational leadership therefore is to influence the group toward the achievement of group goals by planning, organizing, directing and integrating the institutional demands and the needs of members in a way that will be both productive and individually fulfilling. Leadership is supposed to increase group morale and motivate members for them to work hard towards achieving organizational goals and success. Rules and regulations regarding group behavior alone cannot lead to success even if they are enforced by the use of position power of the head. Devoted service and maximum utilization of their group personal ability comes through the exercise of organizational leadership which raises group morale and also motivates them to perform maximally.
School Leadership
Leadership in schools is offered by school principals. The roles of a principal in a school have been developing as they are far from being universally accepted. These include managing school finances and business, the students and teachers, curriculum supervision, managing the school plant and material resources and school community relations. The pressure for greater professional autonomy for teachers and increasing militancy has necessitated a clearer definition of the principals’ professional role of whether to be an administrator or a leader. However, whether administrators or leaders, the school principals are the driving force behind effective schools. Effective schools have the ability to make a difference to student learning. They show a relationship between student achievement on tests of basic skills and a stable set of school organization and process characteristics (Hopkins, Ainscow and West, 1994). Effective schools are a result of effective leadership and these schools are characterized by strong administrative leadership, high expectations for students, emphasis on student acquisition of basic skills, frequent monitoring of student progress and an orderly climate conducive to learning. Effective leadership in schools leads to high academic achievement. School leadership helps to shape the nature of school conditions such as goals, culture, forms of pedagogy used by teachers among others in enhancing student achievement in academics. Schools contribute differentially to pupil achievement and therefore the school a child goes to determines his/her academic achievement as Hopkins et-al (1994) posits, the school a child goes to does matter.
Role of the Principal in School Leadership.
The principal as the chief executive is the overall in charge of the school and is responsible for the quality of the school. S/he supervises the whole school programs and bears the ultimate responsibility for the overall school performance, proficiency and effectiveness including the competency of all school programs (Wango, 2006). The head is the secretary to the BOG, and in charge of the day-to-day activities in the school. He should understand the departmental programs and work closely with all the teachers through consultation on issues of mutual interest to the school like games and sports, other co-curricular activities and examinations. The school head should be well informed and experienced on the school system and should have an orientation to the whole school program The school principals are charged with five major roles. Globally and in Kenya particularly, the duties of a school principal include administering the approved school curriculum, school finance and business, staff and students in the school, school plant and equipment and school community relations (Republic of Kenya 1993,1997; Wango, 2006).Every nation expects the school headteachers to co-ordinate the above mentioned tasks well so that they can have effective schools that would lead these nations into achieving their formal education goals (Okumbe, 1998).When national education policies are made the principal must think of means of implementing them and their aims and values. These policies guide on the procedures of what to be done and how the various operations of the school are to be carried out. In schools there are members of the Board of Governors, the headteacher, deputy headteacher and the senior master as the school leaders. They come up with specific policies relevant to the internal functioning of the school. The principal is therefore charged with the responsibility of seeing that decisions made in the school are in line with the school policies. These policies have to be implemented without deviating from the overall education policy in the country. The school head as an administrator must be efficient and responsible. As the leader of the teaching staff he has the responsibility of promoting effective teaching in the school. This he does by ensuring that the employer appoints qualified and competent teachers in his school. He should also be a highly competent and skilled person in modern techniques of classroom instruction, human relations, delegation of responsibilities and communication (Mbiti, 1974). He is responsible for the assignment of tasks and duties to the staff and ensuring that each person performs his or her duties satisfactorily through constant supervision. To achieve the goal of improving the curriculum goals the principal must have an understanding of the teacher and the teacher’s roles and must always be prepared to work effectively with the teacher. He must maintain discipline among the teaching staff and the students which he must do with tact, fairness and firmness. The principal also ensures that each teacher is given an opportunity to satisfy his leadership aspirations by delegating duties and responsibilities to the staff. He should know that his employer the ministry of education or its agency the TSC expects quality work, loyalty and integrity from him. He therefore has to maintain a strong liaison with the ministry or its agencies such as the school board. A responsible school head must keep the trust bestowed upon him by his employer and be exemplary as a teacher. When it comes to human relations the school head is in a key position to influence the human factors of morale. He must be able to analyze the social and community setting including power structures and pressure groups in order to get support for the school programs. The headteacher has to be accountable to the community, know it well to make them interested in what their children are doing in school (Mbiti, 1974).
Leadership Practices that Contribute to School Success
- Setting Directions
A critical aspect of leadership is helping a group to develop shared understanding about the organization and its activities and goals that can undergird a sense of purpose or vision (Hallinger and Heck, 2002.) This is supported by the fundamental theoretical explanations for the importance of leaders direction setting practices from the goal based theories of human motivation (Bandura, 1986). According to such theory, people are motivated by goals which they find personally compelling , as well as challenging but achievable. Having such goals helps people make sense of their work and enables them to find a sense of identity for themselves within their work context. Directions are set through practices like identifying and articulating a vision, fostering the acceptance of group goals and creating high performance expectations. This is enhanced by monitoring organizational performance and promoting effective communication and collaboration.
- Developing People
The ability to engage in practices that help develop people depends, in part, on leader’s knowledge of the technical core of schooling that is required to improve the quality of teaching and learning invoked by the term “Instructional leadership” or leaders emotional intelligence (Goleman, Boyatzis and Mckee, 2002). Emotional intelligence displayed for example through a leader’s personal attention to an employee through the utilization of the employee’s capacities, increases the employee’s enthusiasm and optimism, reduces frustration, transmits a sense of mission and indirectly increases performance (McColl-Kennedy and Anderson, 2002). Leadership practices that significantly and positively help develop people include offering intellectual stimulation, providing individualized support and providing an appropriate model.
- Redesigning the Organization
The changing nature of learning organizations and professional nature of communities calls for change in organizational cultures and structures to facilitate the work of members to match the changing nature of the school’s improvement agenda.Practices like strengthening the school cultures, modifying organizational structures and building collaborative processes must be embraced by the school leadership.
- Management Skills
Running a school today is an enormously demanding job. Good leaders must be good managers knowledgeable about finance. They should have the ability to communicate and collaborate with people inside and outside the school. Leadership should be a shared process involving leaders, teachers, students, parents and the community. An effective leader should coalesce people around meaningful goals and inspire them to work together to accomplish these goals. He should develop powerful ways of connecting with others and know how to build constituencies that push for change and breakdown institutional barriers to teaching and learning.
Effective Leadership, Administration and Management
Knowledge alone is never enough. It takes something more to lead others effectively. Effective management as it is for effective leadership needs to consider the acceptance of the challenge of change. Factors for change include technology, education, innovation, liberation, free decision making process and self awareness (Saad & Khan, 2014). (Saad & Khan, 2014) disclose that the managerial functions are planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding and controlling. The effective manager therefore, wants things to be right under the process of chain of command. Kooutz & O’donnell (1972) discuss the principles of management by stating that the rationale for these principles is: to increase efficiency, to crystallize the nature of management, to improve research for further theories and practice, to attain social goals in a given system. Hence, effective management will depend on the application of the principles of management.
Effective School Leadership and Academic Achievement
The characteristics of principals often determine the dynamics of a school community and the academic outcomes of school policies and procedures. When a school lacks effective leadership, minimal learning takes place. School leaders beginning with the principal must provide strong leadership that sets the tone for the daily operations of the school community. In the absence of effective school leadership discipline breaks down, academics falter and a sense of organized chaos reigns. Ineffective leadership in schools causes disruption in the teaching and learning process leading to inadequate coverage of the school curriculum (Eshiwani, 1984; 1993).Ineffective leadership leads to delinquent behavior among some students and their subsequent failure in national examinations (Thomas, 1993; Njiru, 1999).Effective school principals hire teachers that are impassioned, organized and know their subject area well who will rise to every challenge and be committed to success and excellence. They are able to identify emerging issues and problems and deal with them positively. They work in an environment of transparent openness; their doors are always open, take all telephone calls, address even the most difficult situations or parents and ensure there is teacher motivation and quality teaching and learning (Fullan, 1992; Hopkins et al, 1994). Effective school principals promote increased teacher participation and leadership in decision making process of various aspects of the school administration. They believe in change by having a vision which they develop with co-workers and value the organization’s personnel. School vision influences the school climate which includes teachers’ instructional behavior as well as student outcomes. Effective school headteachers will always value the human resources of their organization. They provide an environment that promotes individual contributions to the organizations work. They develop and maintain collaborative relationships formed during the development and adoption of the organization’s shared vision. They form teams, support team efforts, develop the skills groups and individuals need, provide the necessary resources both human and material to fulfill the shared vision. According to the Kenyan government headteachers are supposed to share leadership roles with their deputies and heads of department(Republic of Kenya,1993)as team leadership impacts on students academic achievement and leadership effectiveness. Effective leaders apply their styles of leadership basing on situations. No one model of leadership can fit in all schools as they vary in size, catchment areas, vision, culture, intellectual capacity and professional maturity of staff. He or she should therefore regularly review leadership and management roles, structures, principles, practices and styles so that the school can adapt to changes in their particular circumstances.
2.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The contingency theory of leadership effectiveness by Fiedler (1967) was adopted for this study. This theory is a combination of the trait theory and situational theory that implies that leadership is a process in which the ability of a leader to exercise influence depends upon the group task, situation and the degree to which the leader’s personality fits the group (Sybil, 2000). This theory specifically deals with leadership style, leadership effectiveness and organizational goal achievement or effectiveness. Fiedler states that effective organizations are those that achieve their set goals while effective leaders are those that match the right leadership style with the right organization or group situation in order to achieve the organization goal. The study operationalized goal attainment to mean registering high academic achievement in secondary schools as evaluated by KNEC through the KCSE examinations. From this it should be noted that the concepts leadership styles, leadership effectiveness and organizational goal achievement or effectiveness which the theory addresses were core in this study justifying the application of this theory in the study.In addition Fiedler’s theory has been used to determine the headteachers leadership effectiveness and styles in educational institutions in Kenya (Okumbe, 2001, Ochiel,2008) and elsewhere (Hoy & Miskel, 1982).This theory is considered appropriate because it embraces both the trait and situational theories besides addressing leadership styles. According to Fiedler, a leader is the individual who is given the task of directing and coordinating task-relevant activities, or the one who carries the responsibility for performing these functions when there is no appointed leader.Fiedler relates the effectiveness of the leader to aspects of the favorableness of the situation and the characteristics of the leader. The characteristics of the leader which form the basis of his leadership style greatly influence the effectiveness of a leader. The correct style that a leader chooses is dependent on the interaction of internal and external factors within the organization. Basing on the characteristics of a leader, Fiedler came up with two main styles of leadership thus the task oriented leadership style and the relationship oriented leadership style. Task-oriented (autocratic) leaders’ primary concern is ensuring employees perform at high levels and are more appropriate in disaster’s and extreme situations. Relationship oriented (democratic) leaders are concerned with developing good relationships with employees and seek to be liked by the employees. These leaders focus on quality inter-personal relationships within the organization. In his theory Fiedler stipulates that factors of the situation determine leadership effectiveness and he identified three factors as leader member relationship, task structure and the position power. Leader member relationship refers to the extent to which the followers like, trust and are loyal to their leader. When the leader member relation is good, the situation is favorable for the leader to achieve organizational goals. The task structure determines the extent to which workers or subordinates know what is to be accomplished and how to go about it. It determines the standards to which work is performed. When the task structures are high, the situation is favorable for leading and when it’s low the workers are unsure of what is expected of them. This makes the situation unfavorable for leading. The amount of legitimate reward and cohesive power a leader possesses by virtue of occupying a given position in an organization is a determining factor in leader effectiveness. Leadership is effective when position power is strong as the leader has legitimate, cohesive, reward, expert and charismatic power. The degree to which a leader influences the hiring, firing, discipline, promotions and salary increases determines his effectiveness. Fiedler therefore believes that the most favorable situation is one that has a clearly defined scope, high positional power and good relationship between the leaders and followers. A leader can become more effective by altering the three variables of position power, task structure and leader member relations. All individuals can become effective leaders if they chose the most appropriate situation to apply their leadership style. Therefore to realize high academic achievement in schools i.e. become effective headteachers should identify the situational factors within the school community and then choose an appropriate leadership style to apply in each situation. Fiedler’s conclusions can be summarized as follows: (Okumbe, 1998).
- A leader faces a very favorable situation that is easy to control if the leader is assigned power and authority; the tasks to be carried out by the work group are clearly defined and structured and the leader is well liked and trusted by the group members.
- A leader faces a very unfavorable situation that is less easy to control, where formal authority is not clearly defined, there exists ambiguity in the tasks to be performed and where there is no high degree of trust or liking for the leader by the subordinates.
- The best strategy for the leader in either very favorable or very unfavorable conditions is to be directive and task oriented.
4) The best strategy for the leader in moderately favorable or moderately unfavorable condition is to be more supportive or lenient.
Following the discussion on Fiedlers theory of leadership styles and effectiveness, it can be deduced that organizations themselves can do a great deal to help leaders be effective by ensuring that power and authority are clear and certain and tasks are clearly defined. In Kenya this has been recognized and enforced (Republic of Kenya; 1993).Leadership effectiveness therefore will depend as much on the organization as on the leader. Since the government has put appropriate legislation in place for the management and quality assurance in schools, students’ academic achievement in all secondary schools will heavily be influenced by leadership effectiveness of the headteachers. It is also worthy to mention that Fiedlers theory is widely applied by various leaders in ensuring organizational goal achievement.