This study investigates the impact of Principals’ leadership styles on teachers’ professional development. A survey research design was employed for this study. A sample of 16 principals and 80 teachers was selected from Valikamam Education zone and data was collected from the sample through questionnaires. Simple descriptive statistical techniques were used to analyze the data. The findings showed that most principals practiced democratic leadership style in most instances and teachers have identified that their participation in professional development programmes mostly supported by democratic leaders and least by autocratic leaders. Further they perceived that democratic leadership style of their principals has positive impact on their professional development

Anushya, Sathiaseelan

English

IR South Eastern University of Sri Lanka

80 
 
Impact of Principals’ Leadership Style on Teachers’ Professional 
Development 
Anushya Sathiaseelan 
 
Abstract: 
This study investigates the impact of Principals’ leadership styles on teachers’ professional 
development. A survey research design was employed for this study. A sample of 16 
principals and 80 teachers was selected from Valikamam Education zone and data was 
collected from the sample through questionnaires. Simple descriptive statistical techniques 
were used to analyze the data. The findings showed that most principals practiced 
democratic leadership style in most instances and teachers have identified that their 
participation in professional development programmes mostly supported by democratic 
leaders and least by autocratic leaders. Further they perceived that democratic leadership 
style of their principals has positive impact on their professional development.  
Keywords: Principals, Leadership styles, Teachers, Professional development.  
 
Introduction: 
In the modern world teachers have to 
play numerous roles to successfully 
face the demands placed upon them by 
the society. To equip the teaching body 
with the skills and competencies 
needed for its new roles, it is necessary 
to have both quality initial teacher 
education and a coherent process of 
continuous professional development 
and keep the teachers up to date with 
the skills required in a knowledge 
based society. Successful professional 
development experiences have a 
noticeable impact on teachers work in 
and out of the classroom as well as on 
the teachers’ beliefs and behaviour. 
According to Pearson(2008) effective 
professional development will prepare 
educators to understand and appreciate 
all students, create safe, orderly and 
supportive learning environment. 
Therefore, in the modern knowledge 
explosion era teacher professional 
development is critically important to 
school improvement focused on 
enhanced student learning outcomes. 
Although many factors influence the 
professional development of teachers, 
school principal is in a unique position 
to influence the overall quality of it. 
Considerable part of the previous 
research has focused on teachers’ 
professional development and the 
factors which affect their formation. 
However little is known about the 
impact of Principals’ leadership styles 
on the professional development of 
teachers. The central point of this study 
is to explore teachers’ views about the 
impact of their principals’ leadership 
style on their professional 
development. In particular this study 
81 
 
tries to examine the leadership styles 
practiced by the principals and their 
influence on teachers’ professional 
development.  
 
Background of the study: 
In Sri Lanka as in most of the 
developing countries teachers are the 
key source of knowledge, skills, 
wisdom, appropriate orientation, 
inspiration and models for the students. 
As a consequence the teacher is central 
in facilitating the process that lead to 
meaningful education and pupils 
learning are affected by teacher quality. 
Teacher professional development 
provides opportunities for teachers to 
explore new roles, develop 
instructional techniques, refine their 
practices and broaden themselves both 
as educators and as individuals.  
The teaching force in Sri Lankan 
schools is made up of three main 
categories namely, graduate teachers, 
trained teachers and teachers from 
national colleges of education. 
Graduates from the national 
universities are directly appointed to 
teachers’ service without any 
professional training. Above 35% of 
teachers in Sri Lanka are recruited as 
untrained graduates and they should be 
provided with appropriate professional 
development activities to enhance their 
professional skills.When they practice 
as teachers they follow a post graduate 
diploma in education programme to 
obtain a basic professional 
qualification.  In Sri Lanka this 
professional diploma is offered by five 
institutions including four national 
universities. Graduate teachers follow 
this programme at any one of these 
institution to obtain required 
professional qualification. However 
choice and completion of this 
programme is influenced by many 
factors such as family, school, 
economy, age etc. As the instructional 
leader Principal plays a key role on the 
professional development of his/her 
teachers.  Therefore there is a pressing 
need for empirical evidence on the 
impact of principals’ leadership style 
on teachers’ professional development 
and the relationship between principals’ 
leadership style and teacher renewal 
and enhancement of professional 
knowledge and skills.  The present 
study is designed to address this need 
by investigating teachers’ perceptions 
on principals’ leadership style on their 
professional development.  
 
Literature Review: 
The Literature review presents some 
views on Teachers’ professional 
development, Principals’ leadership 
styles and relationship between 
principals’ leadership styles and 
Teachers’ professional development. 
Professional development in a broad 
sense refers to the development of a 
person in his or her professional role. 
Professional development consists of 
all natural learning experiences and 
those conscious and planned activities 
which are intended to be of direct or 
indirect benefit to the individual, group 
or school. It is the process by which, 
alone and with others teachers review, 
82 
 
renew and extend their commitment as 
change agents to the moral purpose of 
teaching and by which they acquire and 
develop critically the knowledge, skills 
and emotional intelligence essential to 
good professional thinking, planning 
and practice with children, young 
people and colleagues through each 
phase of their teaching 
career.(Day,1999).  Day’s definition is 
more holistic in the way that 
professional development covers all 
kinds of learning experiences both 
planned and unplanned from 
individuals to institution level to 
achieve the core aim of education. 
As the instructional leader principal 
plays the key role in the professional 
development of his/her teachers. 
Dillan&Peterson emphasized this idea 
and stated that school head is the key 
player or backbone of a person to 
enhance the professional skills of 
teachers.  Rowland & Adams also 
clearly state this idea. They suggested 
that the head teacher should be 
committed to develop teachers. Further 
they add she/he has to be a model, his/ 
her teaching should be exemplary and 
provide clinical supervision to teachers. 
(cited in Komba&Nkumbi). 
Considering all these aspects, the 
present study tries to investigate the 
impact of principals’ leadership style 
on teachers’ professional development. 
Vast amount of literature is available 
on the professional development of 
teachers and a number of studies have 
been done on the leadership styles of 
principals. A study conducted by 
Adegbesan(2013), investigates the 
impact of principals’ leadership style 
on teachers’ morale in terms of 
commitment and productivity in 
secondary schools. However this study 
doesn’t try to look at the professional 
role of teachers. So the researcher feels 
there is a gap in this aspect and should 
be studied.  In another study 
Elzahiri(2013), examines the impact of  
principals’ leadership style on teachers’ 
motivation. Finding of this study 
illustrates that the effective leadership 
approaches will increase the job 
satisfaction and motivation of teachers.   
According to the available literature no 
studies were conducted to examine the 
relationship between principals’ 
leadership styles and teachers’ 
professional development in the Sri 
Lankan context. Therefore it is still 
worthwhile to throw light on this area. 
So it is the aim of the current study to 
explore the impact of principals’ 
leadership style on teachers’ 
professional development so as to 
enrich the local literature on the 
relationship between principals’ 
leadership style and teachers’ 
professional development with 
reference to teachers in the Sri Lankan 
context. 
Objectives: 
This study was carried out to achieve 
the following objectives: 
 To examine the leadership styles 
practiced by the school principals 
83 
 
 To investigate how teachers 
identified the existing leadership 
style of their principals 
 To identify teachers’ perceptions 
on the principals leadership style in 
relation to their professional 
development 
 To draw suggestions for principals 
to improve the quality of their 
leadership style 
 
Methodology: 
Survey research design was adopted for 
this study.  The study focuses on the 
leadership style adopted by the 
principals and how it affects the 
professional development of teachers. 
The population of this study included 
the principals and teachers of 
government schools in Valikamam 
Education zone. Sample was selected 
using stratified random sampling 
technique. Sixteen schools were 
included in the sample which 
represents four types of schools namely 
1AB, 1C, Type II and Type III. 
Questionnaires and interviews were 
used as the instruments for data 
collection. Simple descriptive statistical 
techniques were used to analyze the 
data and are presented using 
percentages and graphs. Qualitative 
data obtained through the open ended 
questions and interview were coded, 
categorized and analyzed into themes. 
 
Findings and discussion: 
The study focused on three leadership 
styles practiced by the principals and 
their impact on teachers’ professional 
development. 
Leadership styles practiced by the 
principals: 
The findings of the study revealed that 
most of the principals in the sample 
generally practiced democratic 
leadership styles. In addition they also 
practiced autocratic and laissez-faire 
leadership styles in some instances. 
Even though 80% of principals 
perceive themselves as democratic 
leaders, 50% of them believe that they 
had to be autocratic in some instances 
and 45% claim that they practiced 
laissez-faire at certain instances. 
Teachers’ perception on the impact of 
principals’ leadership styles in relation 
to their professional development: 
Teachers have identified that their 
participation in professional 
development programmes is mostly 
supported by democratic leaders and 
least by autocratic leaders. 75% of the 
teachers expect their principals to 
practice more passive and democratic 
leadership styles towards their 
professional development. They 
perceived that democratic leadership 
style has positive impact on their 
professional development. 
 
Conclusions: 
The study was undertaken to find out 
the impact of school principals 
leadership style on teachers’ 
professional development. Sixteen 
schools in Valikamam education zone 
84 
 
were chosen for this study. Based on 
the findings, the following conclusions 
were drawn: 
 The leadership style adopted by 
most of the principals is 
democratic.  
 Principals’ leadership style has a 
positive impact on teachers’ 
professional development. 
 
Suggestions: 
Based on the findings, it has been 
discovered that teachers’ participation 
in professional development activities 
is directly influenced by the leadership 
styles of principals. 
1. Principals should promote and 
encourage teachers’ professional 
growth rather than bureaucratic 
strategies. 
2. A government policy should be 
made to ensure that all principals 
undergo an induction course on 
leadership and management. 
3. The teacher education institutions 
should take actions to get the 
Principals’ involvement in 
teachers’ professional 
development programmes. 
References: 
Adegbesan,O.S.(2013), Effect of 
Principals’ leadership style on teachers’ 
attitude to work in Ogun state              
secondary schools, Nigeria, Turkish 
Online Journal of Distance Education, 
14(1), p14-28 Jan 2013 retrieved on 
21.04.2013 from 
http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde50/articl
es/article_1.htm 
Day, C.(1999). Developing Teachers: 
The Challenges of life long Learning. 
London: Falmer press. 
Elzahiri.S.,(2013).Impact of Principals’ 
leadership style on Teacher motivation, 
Dissertation, retrieved on 21.04.2013 
from 
http://udini.proquest.com/view/impact-
of-principals-leadership-
goid:853641943/ 
Komba.L&Nkumbi.E.(2008),”Teachers 
professional development in Tansania-
perceptions and practices”, Journal of 
International cooperation in 
Education, 11(3), 67-73. Retrieved 
from http://home.hiroshima-
u.ac.jp/cice/11-3komba.pdf on 
22.04.2012 
Pearson.B.(2008).Teacher perceptions 
of the impact of professional 
development and teacher student 
relationships on school climate. 
(Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved on 
22.04.2012 from 
etd.auburn.edu/etd/bitstream/handle/10
415/1065/price_beverly_52.pdf?sequen
ce=1 
Villegas.E.,(2010). Teacher 
professional development: an 
international review of the 
literature.UNESCO: International 
institute for Educational planning. 
Retrieved on 21.4.2012 from 
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/0013
30/133010e.pdf. 
Wan, S.W.Y.,(2011), Teachers 
perceptions and experiences of 
continuing professional 
85 
 
development(CPD):opportunities 
&needs in Hong Kong primary schools, 
Ed.D thesis, University of Nottingham, 
retrieved from http://ethesis. 
notingham.ac.uk/2250/1/EdD_thesis
 on 07.10.2012 
 


Impact of principals’ leadership style on teachers’ professional development

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