Female secondary schools teachers` perceptions of principals` leadership style and its relationship with their organizational commitment

Abstract

The objectives of the Saudi educational policy are to ensure that education becomes more efficient to meet the religious, economic and social needs of the country, and to eradicate illiteracy among Saudi adults. These objectives can be achieved, with the availability of efficient and effective school principals endowed with superb leadership qualities so as to encourage and drive the teachers as well as other educational staff and ensure their commitment. Based on the mentioned fact, the present research embarks on this study with the aim of investigating the female principals of female secondary school’s major leadership style in Dammam based on Kurt Lewin styles of leadership. Moreover, it aims to identify the level of teacher’s organizational commitment from their perceptions and assess the relationship between principals’ the three major leadership styles and teachers’ organizational commitment. The quantitative method was used, where 351 questionnaires were distributed to the secondary school female teachers in Dammam district of Saudi Arabia. The findings from the study indicate that, the female teachers in Dammam were highly committed to their school due to the leadership styles that were used by their principals. The three leadership styles that were used by the principals were based on their traits and the situations they found themselves. The key recommendation made by this research with regards to the practices of principals is that, effort should be made to train principals on effective leadership to enhance quality of education.