Leadership Effectiveness and Academic Performance in Second Cycle Educational Institutions: A Comparative Analysis of the Central and Northern Regions of Ghana

Abstract

Leadership effectiveness has been used in the developed states to achieve success in organisations, communities and industries. Research in Ghana on leadership effectiveness has been at the Junior High School level. To highlight leadership effectiveness in second cycle educational institutions, literature related to the research was reviewed to obtain the views of various authorities. The general objective of this research was to analyse leadership effectiveness in the second cycle institutions of the Central and Northern Regions of Ghana. Questionnaire administration, focused group discussion, interviews and observations were used to gather data from 890 teachers in the two regions. The technique used for selecting the school teachers was the simple random sampling technique. Data gathered were cleaned, coded and the SPSS software was used for the data processing. Parents, students and some opinion leaders also offered some suggestions on the questions administered. From analysis, it was found that the heads employed democratic process of leadership most in their schools. This enables teachers, students, leaders of the non-teaching service to offer ideas for decision-making in the schools. For the determinants of leadership effectiveness, 21 factors were regressed in batches of seven and effective supervision stood out as the most prominent factor. On measurement of leadership effectiveness, results showed improvement in the schools. Useful suggestions including special pension, car loan and housing schemes were put forward as ways of improving leadership effectiveness.