Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to investigate the principals’ leadership effectiveness in
secondary schools of Kaffa Zone. School principals, department heads, students, and PTSAs and
supervisors of each Woreda were included in the study as primary sources of data. In order to
come to a sound and meaningful conclusion, the study relied on qualitative and quantitative
approaches and employed descriptive survey research design. In order to give special emphasis
for the combination of urban and rural schools, the researcher used purposive sampling
technique to pick up 13 secondary Schools because of their more urban feature being
characterized. Simple random sampling was used to select half of the secondary schools already
found in the study area. Thus, the population of the study embraced 29 randomly selected
secondary schools found in Kaffa Zone. The number of research participants was 714. Data
were gathered through questionnaire, interview and document analysis. The obtained data were
analyzed using SPSS version 20. Findings of the study revealed that many of the secondary
school principals have acquired the required level of qualification, but lacked sufficient
preparation to effectively promote the desired changes in the schools’ system. Findings also
revealed the principals’ lowered effectiveness in creating and maintaining good school culture;
evaluating the ongoing achievements of the teaching learning process; and using teachers to
evaluate results to improve the instruction process. Finally, the study recommended leadership
position attainment conditions needed to be transparent to all concerned parties; orientation
required about principalship and the leadership roles expected from school principals; and the
need for creating a collaborative staff and the community.
