Exploring School Principals' Leadership Styles and Learners' Educational Performance: A Perspective from High- and Low-Performing Schools

Abstract

School leadership is fundamental to the educational functioning of schools and their improvements of results. The study employed a qualitative approach to explore school principals' leadership styles and the educational performance of learners in high- and low-performing schools in Vhembe District, Limpopo, South Africa. The participants were purposefully selected from 10 secondary schools in terms of their performance. Focus group interviews were conducted with five teachers from each school. The interview data was transcribed and analysed, and identical patterns of coded data were grouped together under emerging themes. The overall results of the study indicated that the democratic leadership style together with the transformational leadership style contribute to high educational performance of learners. School principals from high- and low-performing schools employ a democratic leadership style and differ only in the sense that the latter are permissive or lenient towards...