Investigate The Influence Of Principal Leadership Style On Student Achievement In Rural Secondary School In Lagos,Nigeria

The Leadership styles adopt by school principal plays an important role in raising the students’ academic achievement in Nigeria.This study investigates whether the principal’s leadership styles influence student achievement in rural secondary school in Nigeria.Firstly,the study determines the overall type of leadership style adopt by upper and lower rural secondary school in Nigeria.Secondly,it establishes the principal leadership style behavior in both upper and lower secondary school.Finally,the study intends to assess the Nigerian principal leadership style with student achievement in upper and lower rural secondary school.The research design used is a quantitative descriptive sectional survey research design.Theoretical or educational gap,locational gap,and the approach gap were identified.In the research process,the researcher utilized two survey questionnaires,“Leadership Orientation Survey” from Bolman and Terrence E.Deal which has three section,leadership styles,leader’s behavior,and overall rating respectively.The second survey contains one section“principal leadership survey”.Forty-six teachers in upper and forty in lower rural secondary school were asked but only 20 in upper and 20 in lower responded during the research.Descriptive analysis using frequency and percentage were analyzed to answer the research questions.Leadership styles utilized in Nigeria rural secondary school are Democratic,Autocratic and laissez-faire leadership styles.From our research,the upper rural secondary school adopts democratic(46.7%)than autocratic(21.9%)and laissez-faire(8.01%)leadership style.However,in lower rural secondary school,the study can’t really define the exact leadership styles since lower rural secondary school combine the democratic(29.2%),autocratic(28.4%)and laissezfaire(19.4%)leadership styles.Furthermore,democratic leadership style and autocratic leadership type found mostly practiced for in term of maintaining or improving students’ academic achievement.Majority of rural secondary schools do not adopt laissez-faire leadership styles.The Principal behavior in view of the leadership style in this research practiced the overall leadership behaviors which are structural,political,human resources,symbolic behavior in upper rural secondary school(34%)than in lower rural secondary school(10.2%).The teachers have different perception about their principal in upper and lower rural secondary school and the leadership style of the school is the basis of formulating the Nigerian principal behavior in the school.Principal leadership style in upper rural secondary school(47.5%)influences the student achievement but not that much in lower rural secondary school(14.1%),according to teacher satisfaction.The leadership styles influence the raise of academic achievement of students enumerated while the teacher of upper and lower rural secondary school perceives the bounding between principal leadership styles and student performance.A substantial result by Adeyemi,T.O.,& Bolarinwa,R.were used to confirm the result about the influence of Principals’ Leadership Styles on Student Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Nigeria.It shows that using democratic and autocratic leadership style influence student achievement instead of laissez-faire leadership styles.Conclusively,the rural secondary school in Nigeria adopt democratic and autocratic leadership styles than laissez-faire,while they practice democratic and autocratic leadership style,principal show the overall leadership behavior and influence student achievement,while not at all if practicing laissez-faire leadership styles except when combining with democratic and autocratic leadership styles.Based on the findings,there is a lot of difference between the URSSN and LRSSN,in view of leadership style,principal behavior and the association with student performance.The recommendation may be concerning the selection of leadership style and training of principal.Rural secondary School whichever upper or lower in Lagos Nigeria are responsible for appointing all principals to make it a point of duty to train them in specific leadership style,and that educational policy makers on their part should make a policy for in-service training of principals in leadership practices,so that those principals who are already making use of specific leadership style in their different schools will be encouraged.