Impacts of Leadership Styles in the Selected Public Secondary Schools in Songea Municipality, Tanzania.

This study investigated the impacts of leadership styles in the selected public secondary schools in Songea Municipality. The study had the following three research objectives:(1) to identify major leadership styles employed by heads of schools in the selected public secondary schools. (2) To investigate the impacts of the current leadership styles in the selected public secondary schools. (3) To examine whether the current leadership practices reflect the intention of educational system or not. Qualitative research approach with case study design was applied in this study. A total of 44 participants (4 heads of schools, 20 students, and 20 teachers) were involved in this study. Purposive sampling was employed to select schools and their heads of schools who participated in this study. Teachers and students were conveniently selected. The data were collected through individual interviews, observation, focus group discussion and documentary analysis. Content analysis was used to analyse data. The findings revealed that the major leadership styles commonly employed by the heads of schools included democratic, dictatorship and laissez faire. The findings of this study have shown that participatory (democratic) leadership style has positive effects on students’ involvement during teaching and learning, teachers’ work commitment and teachers’ job satisfaction compared to dictatorship and laissez faire types of leadership. The study recommends that heads of schools need to apply democratic leadership style in most occasions so as to maintain peace and improve school performance. It is proposed that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology needs to establish leadership and emphasize on-the job training for the heads of schools to empower them with knowledge on acceptable leadership styles given the situation. Keywords:Impacts of leadership, public secondary schools, heads of schools, Songe