| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of principals' leadership styles on teachers' motivation in public secondary schools in Homa Bay County. The objectives of the study were; to identify how autocratic leadership style influence teacher motivation in public secondary schools; to establish how democratic leadership styles influences teacher motivation in secondary schools; to determine how principals who practice laissez faire leadership style affects motivation of teachers, and to investigate the extent to which personal characteristics influences motivational strategies employed by principals in public secondary school. This study guided by the two-factor theory advanced by Fredrick Herzberg (1966).
Descriptive survey-was used in this study. The sample of the study was drawn from 209 secondary schools with a total of 3912 teachers and an average of 18 teachers per school. This produced a target population of 3912 teachers. Simple random sampling was used to ensure that all categories of schools and teachers were represented. The sample size was 100 teachers who were randomly selected from the pool of 20 secondary schools. The study employed a questionnaire for data collection. Validity of instrument is improved through expert judgment. To test reliability of the instrument test-retest technique was used. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data obtained.
The study revealed that democratic leadership style was commonly used by principals in area of study. From the study, it is evident that more than half the teachers were demotivated by the autocratic leadership style. This can be attributed to the fact that autocratic leadership style does not involve the teachers in decision making hence the principals make all the decisions and welding absolute power assigning tasks to members of the group. Data obtained in this study also indicates that democratic leadership style leads to high level of teacher motivation in terms of commitment, hard work and achievements targets set. On the challenges, faced by principals who practice laissez faire leadership and how it affects motivation of teachers.
This method involves a non-interference policy which allows complete freedom to all workers and has no particular way of attaining goals. Trends observed revealed that teachers were demotivated by the laissez faire leadership. Poor pay is the leading cause of low motivation among teachers. From the results of this study, the researcher concludes that; a majority of the teachers indicated that democratic leadership is the best style that promotes motivation of the teachers because it gives room for consultation in decision making.
From previous research findings and from this present study, several recommendations are made for consideration by the government, TSC, schools, teachers, parents and teachers; since most principals leadership styles were democratic as rated by themselves and teachers, this lead to high level of motivation among teachers and hence they had a common goal to achieve. The principal is able to satisfy teachers' expectation by giving them current information, opportunity for growth and development, effective supervision.
The principals who use autocratic leadership styles should include other leadership styles to enable improve their leadership by involving teachers in decision making programmes so as to improve their relationship. School principals should adopt democratic leadership styles, where they involve all teachers, non teaching staff members and the students in making decision that affects their day to day activities in the schools. KEMI and the universities should incorporate in their teacher training curriculum emerging leadership theories as transformation and how they impact on human resource management. | en_US |
