The Effect of Leadership Style on Job Satisfaction among Public Primary School Teachers in Bonga Town, Kafa Zone, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Schools are institutions where human resource development tasks. The success however depends on favorable leadership style that boosts teachers’ job satisfaction. There is little evidence in Ethiopia and thus in the study area on school leadership practices and their relationship with teachers’ job satisfaction.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the leadership styles of primary school principals and their relationships with teachers’ job satisfaction at Bonga Town, Southwest Ethiopia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from February 25 to March 05, 2018. All teachers working in all (six) public primary schools in the Town who were available during the data collection period were surveyed using a self-administered structured questionnaire that was adapted from validated sources. Data were entered, cleaned and analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics, and simple and multiple linear regression analyses were done. P-value < 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance in the latter analysis.

Results: Out of the 202 questionnaires distributed, a total of 187 were returned making the response rate to be 92.6%. The overall mean job satisfaction score was 3.84(±0.77), indicating that the teachers were just satisfied with their job. Transformational leadership style was most commonly demonstrated by the school principals. School principals more commonly demonstrated individualized consideration than others, 3.85(±0.88), followed by charismatic leadership, 3.79 (±0.82). While active management by exception was the most frequently demonstrated transactional leadership style, 3.65(±0.98); passive management by exception was the least frequently demonstrated style, 2.57(±1.1). Of all the leadership styles, Laissez faire was least frequently practiced one, 2.5(±1.06). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that only transformational charismatic and transactional active management by exception leadership behaviors persisted to have statistically significant positive effect on teachers’ job satisfaction (=0.65, p-value=0.000; and =0.22, p-value=0.000, respectively.

Conclusions and recommendations: Teachers working in public primary schools were just satisfied with their job. School principals demonstrated both transformational and transactional leadership styles than Laissez-faire leadership style, and these styles had significant positive effect on teachers’ job satisfaction. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve teachers’ job satisfaction further. Blended application of both transactional and transformational leadership behaviors is suggested for better achievement in school performance. A similar research controlling for the potential confounding effects of socio-demographic and work related characteristics of the participants is also recommended.