EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP STYLES AND SUPERVISORY TECHNIQUES ON PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

It is a natural phenomenon for children to look to the adults in their surrounding environment as leaders that they may one day choose to emulate. In some instances, many children have a misconception of what it means to serve as a leader. They often only see the leader as a person who is the boss, someone who is in charge, or first. In school, many children have the desire to be the ‘line leader’ or the individual who stands in the capacity of the teacher and writes names when the teacher has to leave the classroom. These small roles as well as adult influences help to develop a child’s personality and in turn further lead to the development of their leadership abilities.

From a very young age, children are influenced by human characteristics and behaviours that help to shape and develop their concept of ‘good and bad,’ and ‘right and wrong.’ There are some individuals that feel that children display leadership qualities at a young age. Even though this may be the case, is it truly safe to imply that the child was born to lead, or are they displaying characteristics that they have picked up on at a rather rapid pace?

There are two types of individuals in this world; individuals who choose to lead and individuals who choose to follow. Not everyone has the skill level, knowledge, or even the desire to become a leader, but individuals who have the aspiration, willingness to overcome obstacles, and enthusiasm may prove to be capable of becoming an effective leader without having the ‘natural born’ instinct.

In order to be effective in a supervisory capacity, it is important for individuals to develop and put into practice various skills and abilities that will help to enhance their ability to be successful in leadership roles. There is much confusion as to what the term ‘supervision’ truly entails. Many people believe it only applies to people who oversee the productivity and development of entry-level workers; however, supervision is the activity carried out by supervisors to oversee the productivity and progress of employees who report directly to the supervisors (Staker, n.d.).

The term ‘supervisor’ typically refers to one’s immediate superior in the workplace, that is, the person to whom you report directly to in an organization. For example, a top manager would generally supervise an employee who is a middle manager, a middle manager would supervise a first-line manager and a first-line manager would supervise a worker (Staker, n.d.).

Supervisors typically are responsible for their direct employees’ progress and productivity in the organization. Supervision often includes conducting basic management skills, organizing teams, noticing the need for and designing new job roles in the group, hiring new employees, training new employees, managing employee performance, and ensuring conformance to personnel policies and other internal regulations (Robbins & De Cenzo, 2001). Supervising others can indeed be quite a complicated and tedious process. It takes a tremendous amount of effort and drive in order to be considered effective as a supervisor. Effective supervision not only involves getting others to perform in a desirable manner, it also entails mentoring, coaching, monitoring, leading, as well as the utilizing employees and other resources to accomplish a common goal. Supervisors also have the responsibility for implementing essential administrative functions such as staffing, planning, organizing, directing, and controlling.

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses the adequate review on the effect of leadership style and supervisory techniques on primary school pupils.

Leadership is being described as process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.

Supervision is the intervention that is provided by a senior member of a profession to the junior members of the school. Over the past decade school-based leadership accountability has assumed increased importance. The headmaster’s role as a school manager has shifted toward a direct responsibility for classroom results as measured by student academic improvement. In turn, school leaders are obligated to positively influence the school’s capacity to raise student learning gains. It is this paradigm shift that generates a school wide need to focus on school improvement.

Teachers experience direct contact with students and control over content and the climate of the classroom (King and Newmann, 2001). Consequently, administrators must seek methods to raise student achievement by building school capacity through their leadership influence.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter would present research design, population and sample, sampling techniques, instrumentation, validity of instrument, reliability of instrument, data administration and method of data analysis.

Population, sample and sampling techniques

The target population for this study would be all the selected primary schools in Ilorin west local government of Kwara state. The sample for the study would comprise of teachers of primary schools in the selected primary schools.

Instrumentation

A researcher designed questionnaire would be used in collecting data for this study. Personal data of the respondents would be asked with the exclusion of names to eliminate fear. The second section shall contains item which would deals with feature of leadership styles and supervisory techniques. Subjects were instructed to react on the basis of their agreement with the items with YES or NO.