Principal\u27s servant leadership style, school climate and student academic achievement in selected senior high school in Dili, Timor Leste

The purpose of this study is to determine the relative effect of Principal Servant Leadership style and Academic achievement of the third year students of four Secondary High schools in Dili, Timor Leste as mediated by school climate. A total of 77 teachers were qualified for the study, however only 66 questionnaires were usable, representing a return rate of 86%. Participants completed Angs (2003) 50 item Servant Leadership Inventory (SLI) and Hoy, Tarter and Kottkamp\u27s (1991) 34 item Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire for Secondary Schools - Revised Secondary (OCDQ-RS). The academic achievement of students was measured by the 161 science major students scores taken from their National final examinations. Some participants were randomly interviewed with a set of open-ended questions to follow up what they have written in their questionnaires. Using the Pearson Product moment of correlation, the results confirmed a weak but significant relationship between principal servant leadership style and academic achievement (r=. 249) and servant leadership style and school climate (r=.247), both at a p level of .01. The Other centered service (ocs) factor of SL was more pronounced when correlated with school climate (r=.65) and academic achievement (r=.60). A step wise regression analysis was conducted to determine the path and the standard error between variables for the purpose of conducting the Sobel test. The school climate was found to partially mediate the relationship between servant leadership principal and academic achievement of students with a Sobel z of 3.15 (p \u3c .001). The findings of this study lead to the conclusion that other centered service factor of the servant leader principal is instrumental in improving school organizational climate and thus affect the academic achievement of students. Therefore, principals can integrate in their practices of leadership, an other centered service orientation, specifically by enhancing more social interaction among school constituents and providing services viii geared towards the benefit of others. Since this is a preliminary study of principal servant leadership effects on student achievement as mediated by school climate, future research with a larger sample using more adequate measures to study the effects of principal servant leadership style in improving students academic achievement is encouraged