Relationship between Leadership Styles used by Head teachers of Public Secondary Schools and Students’ Academic Performance

The study sought to determine the relationship between leadership styles of the Head teachers and students’ performance at K.C.S.E in public secondary schools in Kericho County. The survey research design was used as a framework for data collection. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select fifty three secondary schools in the County targeted population was two thousand four hundred and ninety nine teachers posted and working in one hundred and nineteen public secondary schools in Kericho County. Out of this target population, one hundred and nineteen were head teachers. Simple random sampling was used to select one thousand and sixty teachers, while stratified sampling was used to select the head teachers from the targeted schools to participate in the study. The reliability of the instruments was established by computing a test re-test reliability coefficient. This was done by administering the test twice, but allowing an interval of one month between them. The pre-testing of the instrument was done in ten non-participating schools in Kipkelion Sub-county. Questionnaires were administered to 10 head-teachers and 100 teachers. Two sets of questionnaires known as the profile of leadership behavior (form LB) and profile of own behavior (form OB) for head teachers and teachers respectively and Interview Schedule were used as the primary tools for data collection. This research embraced an eclecticism paradigm. The findings revealed that the head teachers’ leadership styles had a strong relationship with the schools’ K.C.S.E results. The study recommends that head teachers’ training in school management should be strengthened and supervision of the teachers should be objective. Head teachers should use a balance of autocratic and democratic leadership styles to achieve better K.C.S.E results. This research is vital in its contribution to understanding effective school management in the light of leadership styles and student academic performance.