Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to determine the leadership styles of polytechnic principals as perceived by polytechnic teachers and find out whether there was any relationship between the perceived principals' leadership styles and polytechnic teachers' job satisfaction. From a population of 484 polytechnic teachers, a random sample of 260 was surveyed. The Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) was used to measure the leadership style of the principal while the Mohrman-CookeMohrman Job Satisfaction Scale (MCMJSS) was used to measure teacher job satisfaction. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Enter Method Regression Analysis were used to test for significance of the correlation and regression coefficients. The study showed that generally, teachers rated their principals above the norm on initiating structure leadership style and below the norm on consideration leadership style. There was a significant relationship between polytechnic principals' consideration leadership style, as perceived by teachers, and teacher job satisfaction at an alpha level of 0.01. There was also a significant relationship between polytechnic principals' initiating structure leadership style, as perceived by teachers, and teacher job satisfaction at an alpha level of 0.01. Leadership style predicted 31 % of the variation in intrinsic teacher job satisfaction and 23.8% of the variation in extrinsic teacher job satisfaction. The consideration leadership style better predicts teacher job satisfaction than the initiating structure leadership style. Thus, the leadership styles of polytechnic principals influence the job satisfaction of their teachers. It has therefore been recommended that principals should periodically allow their staff to tell them what they think about their style of leadership. In addition, principals should pay attention to issues that affect the welfare of staff by organising regular durbars during which the problems of staff will be discussed so that solutions will be found to them.
