Abstract:
The major purpose of the study was to assess the Relationship between Teachers’ Trust on Their Principals and Leadership practices In Government Secondary Schools of Jimma Zone. For this study, a correlation research design was employed. A total of 284 teachers from 20 selected secondary schools were randomly selected. Hence, 258(90%) of respondents (teachers) fully filled and also returned the questionnaire. The study used Leithwood and Jantzi, (2010) Model of trust as instrument, which included benevolence, fairness, competence, honesty and openness as facets of trust. The study used also Handford(2011) model of leadership practices as instrument, which included professional practices and values, fostering participation in school decisions, building school vision and goals, offering individualized support for teachers, providing intellectual stimulation/motivation/ of teachers, and evaluation of performance. The findings reveal that generally teachers in secondary schools disagree with their principals showing these five facets of trust at a low-level (M=2.50, SD=1.09). Further, as correlation coefficients results revealed that teachers’ trust like; competence (r=0.36**) fairness (r=0.32**); low positive correlation with leadership practices, benevolence r=0.49**); and openness (0.46**) independently had a moderate positive correlation with leadership practices whereas honesty (0.54**) had a strong positive correlation with leadership practice. The standardized beta (β) results shown that among independent variables, Benevolence is the largest influence or effect of leadership practices 0.412(41.2%) and the next largest influence of beta value competence is found to be 0.166(16.6%) whereas fairness of the beta value is 0.054(0.54 %) showing the least predictor of leadership practices when it is compared with the other independent variables in this study. Lastly, further research on this topic can also be conducted using other methods of qualitative research in depth in order to understand and advance findings on this topic.
