IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE IN PUNJAB

Abstract

There are varieties of definitions given to the term “leadership”. Leadership is generally considered as the relationship between an individual and a group built around some common interest and behaving in a manner directed or determined by him. Most definitions of leadership reflect the assumption that it involves a social influence process whereby intentional influence is exerted by one person (or group) over other people (or groups) to structure the activities and relationships in a group or organization. It is fact that effective leaders are major cause of quality education but effective educational leadership is in a state of crisis because:- a. authorities feel scarcity of highly qualified candidates for leadership role, b. ill-preparation, inadequate support and other demands of leader’s job block progress of organization and, c. often leaders are good academician but lack in managerial knowledge, skills, attitudes and motivation needed to run an organization successfully. Keeping in view of global scenario overall situation in education sector particularly in educational leadership and management in Pakistan remains disappointing with some pockets of progress. Prior to this, little work has been done to study impact of educational leadership behaviour on institutional performance. This study provides sufficient guidelines for policy makers to take appropriate measures for quality education by examining impact of behavioural dimensions (relation & task-oriented behaviour) and demographics (attributes and situational factors) of a leader on institution performance. Current study was conducted to investigate the impact of behavioural dimensions (relation-oriented & task-oriented behaviour) and demographics (situational factors & attributes) of via leader on institutional performance particularly in province Punjab. It examines in terms of intensity of differences and associations with leadership behavioural dimensions, situational factors & attributes and organizational outcomes. This research study is significant because it may provide a factual position about level of competency of educational leader in an organization, provide a platform for decision-makers for adopting appropriate course of action required for development of educational institutions and add more knowledge towards leadership behavioural dimensions in assessing its effectiveness on institutional performance. For this research study stratified quota sampling procedure was observed. The target population was all educational administrators working in educational institutions in public sector in Punjab and accessible population for this study was 25% i.e. (76) Heads of GHSSs, 25% i.e. (55) Principals each of GDCs, 100% i.e. (6) Principals GCEs, 50% i.e. (17) EDOs (Education) and 50% i.e. (17) DEOs (Education). Head of each cluster and eight respective subordinates participated in the study. The subordinates were selected randomly. Nature of the study was descriptive type. It was based on comparison of variables comprised of behavioural dimensions (relation & task-oriented behaviour) and demographics (attributes & situational) factors of a leader. Three questionnaires were developed after going through extensive literature review. These were Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire (LBDQ), Institutional Performance Questionnaire (IPQ) and Leadership Demographics Checklist (LDC). Data was collected personally from those institutions situated in easy access areas, by post due to shortage of time and financial constraints and with the help of friends working in those institutions in remote areas. Collected data were sorted, organized, cleaned and analyzed to see multiple comparisons of groups by applying one of the parametric correlation coefficient techniques; the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and one way ANOVA, to explore any difference between relation and task oriented leadership behaviour towards institutional performance and findings and conclusions were drawn after data analysis. viiThis concludes that task oriented behaviour & relation oriented behaviour is not independent with each other. They are dependent in a sense that one of dimensions of behaviour affects other one. The strong relationship between these two variables is optional for high leadership effectiveness for achieving the objectives of organization. Educational leaders who attended more management courses, having age above 45 years, vast experience, above board results, having more employees under their administrative control, higher professional qualification and experience in preparing PC-1 shown better institutional performance.