Impact of leadership styles on teacher effectiveness

The teacher, in the educational system, has a pivotal role in instilling knowledge and skills in students which empowers them in having a bright future in career as well as life. The teacher also performs various activities such as information processing, engaging in interpersonal relations and decision making which will have an impact on the image of the institution. This makes the effectiveness of teachers crucial, both for the students as well as the institution. In this context, the leadership styles of teachers, involving planning, organising, directing and controlling functions, gains significance in order to develop a conducive learning environment for the students and in the institution. The present study is intended to find out the relationship between teachers’ leadership styles and effectiveness of teachers in select higher educational institutions in Hyderabad, Telangana State, India. It is based on primary data collected from a random sample of teachers. Valid and tested structured questionnaire, comprising components of both Leadership Styles and Effectiveness of teachers, has been applied for the study. Statistical analysis of the collected primary data was carried out using the SPSS, version 20. The tools used include factor analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis to investigate the teacher effectiveness on the basis of the leadership style and to examine whether the ‘age’ variable moderates the relationship between these factors. The results showed that the leadership styles such as visionary, coaching and affiliative styles had a significant relationship with the teacher effectiveness. The study showed that teacher's pacesetting leadership style has no significant effect on teacher effectiveness. It also indicated that age of the teachers moderates the relationship between pacesetting leadership style and teacher effectiveness, such that pacesetting leadership style is negatively related to teacher effectiveness. This study is considered to contribute towards improving the effectiveness of teachers based on their leadership styles.