Assessing the Impact of Transformational Leadership Style at a Selected High School in Jamaica

Introduction

A learning institution is headed by an educational or school leader who leads, manages and influences behaviours and the mindsets of those working under the people leadership. As pointed out by Anastasiou (2021) and Cohen et al. (2009), school leaders are the most influential factor in school improvement (as cited in Kaleem et al., 2021).

According to Othman et al. (2012), the terms leadership and management are not interchangeable; rather, a leader develops and communicates a vision while a manager plans, organises, and implements the leader’s vision and helps the leader to achieve the vision and goals. Several scholars have studied leadership, and this is why leadership is said to be the “most studied and least understood topic” (Benmira & Agboola, 2021, p. 3).

There is no consensus on the definitions of the terms leadership and management. However, leadership was defined as the “process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2016, p. 6), while Kaehler and Grundei (2019) explained that management can be seen from two perspectives, namely, functional and institutional ways. The functional way means “the act of managing,” while the institutional way sees managers as “those people assigned to management positions” (p. 14). For the term school or educational leadership, Jovanovic and Ciric (2018) described it as “a process of influencing employees to achieve organisational goals and organisational excellence” (p. 497). Jovanovic and Ciric added that an educational leader should have a vision and the ability to predict the future. They added that the concept of leadership within the educational context is that the leader should be able to, among other things, account for the institution’s achievements, and develop new teaching and learning programmes, while considering the school dynamics.

School leadership is integral in shaping educational environments and achieving successful outcomes for all stakeholders. Transformational leadership has gained significant attention in the field of education. In fact, effective school leadership is inextricably linked to transformational leadership practices. Numerous studies have confirmed that transformational leadership is one of the most impactful leadership models that drive change and foster a positive school climate (Berkovich, 2016; Leithwood & Sun, 2012; Lin Tengi et al., 2017).

Within the Jamaican education context, school leaders must contend with the changing landscape coupled with the complex challenges their schools face. Several educational institutions are underperforming as they consistently fail to meet the standards of academic achievements and student outcomes (Thompson, 2020). Consequently, school leaders are engaging in transformational leadership practices as a primary strategy to achieve a turnaround in their overall school performance. Hutton (2011) highlighted nine factors that define high-performing principals in Jamaica. These included having a philosophy of school and self, stressing the importance of personal characteristics and tendencies, engaging in transformational and situational leadership practices, having a system that supports students’ growth and development, focusing on students’ academic achievement and performance, a programme that supports strong staff development and involvement, developing an effective school plant, having a strong community presence, and having a cordial, although sometimes fractious relationship with the Ministry of Education (MoE).

The literature suggests that transformational leadership practices have a positive impact on various aspects of Jamaican schools, including student achievement, teacher job satisfaction, organizational commitment, professional development, and teacher efficacy (Hutton, 2016; Palmer et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2015).