A PROJECT ON IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLE AND PERSONALITY PROFILE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. Background of the Study

Throughout history, the successes of all human societies have been hinged on effective management of human and material resources. The successes recorded in the Roman Empire stretching from Europe, Asia and to Africa were products of careful planning, controlling, directing, coordinating and staffing, this entails effective management. It must be underscored, that without effective management of human and material resources, civilization and modernization will be a mirage and history will not be made. No society in the world ever achieved more than its own level of education, this made education the center of civilization and modernization, Hall (2005)

Education is a way of ensuring that a society functions and advance in all ramifications. Without education societal progress will be retarded. As such governments all over the world acknowledge the pivotal role of education and strive to use it to improve their society. Today, in Nigeria there are special calls and agitation for reformation, transformation, revolution or state of emergence to be placed on the education sector to salvage it from total collapse. So, to resuscitate the falling standard in education, it’s imperative to consider, how leadership style and personality profile of education managers and administrators aid or abet the falling standard in the sector. It must be acknowledge that leadership is the determinant of institutional success or failure. In an attempt to diagnose the problems of falling standard in our schools, education managers and administrators often ignore or give little premium to the question of leadership style and personality profile. This explains why the massive investment in the education sector is not yielding any result for the country. Many times education stakeholders have highlighted problems in the sector that include among others:

1. Lack of funding in the sector.
2. Inadequate personnel both teaching and none-teaching.
3. Inadequate infrastructure.
4. Lack of capacity building in terms of training and retraining of staff.
5. Incessant political instability.
6. Frequent change of education policies and programmers.
7. Cultural interference.
8. Lack of teaching materials or aids.
9. Mismanagement and maladministration, Amadi (2008).

The above stated problems and others unstated problems can be caused and should be solve by education administrators. It appears that mismanagement and maladministration are the main problems confronting our education sector. If the problem of mismanagement and maladministration are resolved the other problems of education will be resolved with ease. This is because the managers of any institution determine its success or failure through proper management or mismanagement. The problem of mismanagement anywhere it is found may possible be caused by leadership style and personality profile of the managers or administrators. It must be underscored that bad application of leadership style and personality profile produce problems for an institution while good application of leadership styles and personality profile may perhaps ensure that problems do not manifest in an institution.

This research work is interested in unraveling the impacts of principal’s leadership style and personality profile on effective management of human and material resources. In secondary schools the principal is the chief administrator saddled with the responsibility to manage the human and material resources in the school. As such the principal’s leadership style and personality profile is very impactful on the success or failure of the school. Secondary school is the most powerful segment of our 6-3-3-4 or 9-3-4 education permutations. That explains why principals’ of schools have an enormous task in effective management of assets and liabilities that come from the primary schools and also prepare students for high education. So, to execute their responsibilities effectively it’s imperative to know how leadership style and personality profile impact on the success or failure of the principal’s work.

Leadership style is a leader’s style of providing direction, implementing plans and motivating people (Mertindale, 2011). The way the principal of a school takes decision and implements such decision goes a long way to determine the success of the school. To this end the approaches or methods a principal uses, can be influenced by so many factors. According to Ejieh (2008), the style or styles a leader (principal) adopts “will be based on a combination of their beliefs, values, preferences as well as organizational culture and norms which will inhibit some styles and encourage others. There are so many leadership styles a school principal can use but, first he or she must understand the strength and weakness of all the styles. Then, the principal must achieve the best application and combination of the methods based on prevailing situation. To this end, straight line application of one style of leadership is detrimental to the progress and success of a school. Leadership styles adopted by a principal should be dictated by prevailing situation or contemporary challenges in the school.

According to Rouse (2009), personality profile is a management tool used to provide an evaluation of an employee’s personal attributes values and life skills in an effort to maximize his or her job performance and contribution to the company. This means the personality profile of a principal is the collection of the attributes, values, beliefs, principles, skills and talents of a principal in order to be able to determine his or her strength and weakness; and try to maximize the area of strength and minimize the area of weakness for the good of the school and success of the society. This entails that personality profile of a principal have profound impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of the secondary schools in the country.

This research work is therefore poised to create awareness and enlightenment, on the impact of leadership style and personality profile, on managerial effectiveness of secondary school principals. This is because knowledge is power and with the right personality profile principals will adopt the best leadership styles for application that will remedy the protracted problems in our schools. The secondary school principal with a progressive personality profile will find solution to the challenges of his or her school rather than complain about the challenges and wait for out-side-the-school-intervention.

2. Statement of the Problem

The hosts of problems that plague our secondary schools appear to be aided by retrogressive personality profile in conjunction with thoughtless leadership style of the principals’ in our schools. The secondary school is saddled with the responsibility to absorb pupils from the primary school and prepares them for university or higher education. In spite of the problems of indiscipline, poor academic performance, poor infrastructural development, lack of capacity building, and hosts of others in the primary school, the secondary school is expected to turn the liability into assets. But the wrong personality profile and haphazard application of leadership styles is impeding the success of our secondary schools.

It is important to note that some of our secondary schools have fairly good facilities, structures and personnel but still have mass failure in WAEC and NECO examination. This development may be due to the retrogressive personality profile and the haphazard leadership style of the principals. For instance an autocratic and self-centered principal will mismanage human and material resources in the school but a principal with the right leadership and personality profile is capable of creating an environment of excellence in his or her school.

The decadence and failure in our schools appear to be the multiplier effects of inappropriate leadership style and personality profile of our principals. It is in recourse to the above assertion, that this research is poised to investigate the impact of principal’s leadership and personality profile on effective management of secondary schools in Lafia Education Zone of Nasarawa State.

3. Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the Impact of Principal’s Leadership Styles and Personality Profile on Effective Management of Secondary Schools in Lafia Education Zone of Nasarawa State. Particularly the research is poised to:

1. Find out the impact of principals’ leadership style on school community relationship.
2. Determine the impact of principals’ leadership style on the welfare of students and staff.
3. Determine the impact of principals’ leadership style on discipline in secondary school.
4. Ascertain the impact of principals’ leadership style on teachers’ performance.
5. Find out the impact of principals’ leadership style on physical plant development and maintenance.
6. Ascertain the impact of principals’ leadership style on students’ academic performance.
7. Find out the impact of principals’ personality profile on school community relationship.
8. Determine the impact of principals’ personality profile on the welfare of students and staff.
9. Determine the impact of principals’ personality profile on discipline in secondary school.
10. Ascertain the impact of principals’ personality profile on teachers’ performance.
11. Find out the impact of principals’ personality profile on physical plant development and maintenance.
12. Ascertain the impact of principals’ personality profile on students’ academic performance.

4. Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated to guide in the research on the Impact of Principal’s Leadership Style and Personality Profile on Effective Management of Secondary Schools in Lafia Education Zone of Nasarawa State. The questions inter alia include:

1. How does principals’ leadership style impact on students’ academic performance?
2. In what ways does principals’ leadership style impact on welfare of staff and student?
3. How does principals’ leadership style impact on discipline in secondary school?
4. How does principals’ leadership style impact on school community relation?
5. In what ways does principals’ leadership style impact on teachers’ performance?
6. In what ways does principals’ leadership style impact on physical plant development and maintenance?
7. How does principals’ personality profile impact on students’ academic performance?
8. In what ways does principals’ personality profile impact on welfare of staff and student?
9. How does principals’ personality profile impact on discipline in secondary school?
10. How does principals’ personality profile impact on school community relation?
11. In what ways does principals’ personality profile impact on teachers’ performance?
12. How does principals’ personality profile impact on school plant development and maintenance?

5. Research Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were developed and will be tested at 0.05 level of significance

1. Principals’ leadership style does not impact significantly on students’ academic performance in secondary school.
2. Principals’ leadership does not impact significantly on the welfare of students’ and staff in secondary school.
3. Principals’ leadership style does not impact significantly on school discipline in secondary school.
4. Principals’ leadership style does not impact significantly on teachers’ performance in secondary school.
5. Principals’ leadership style does not impact significantly on school community relationship.
6. Principals’ leadership style does not impact significantly on physical plant development and maintenance in secondary schools.
7. Principals’ personality does not impact significantly on students’ academic performance in secondary school.
8. Principals’ personality profile does not impact significantly on the welfare of students’ and staff in secondary school.
9. Principals’ personality profile does not impact significantly on school discipline in secondary school.
10. Principals’ personality profile does not impact significantly on teachers’ performance in secondary school.
11. Principals’ personality profile does not impact significantly on school community relationship.
12. Principals’ personality profile does not impact significantly on physical plant development and maintenance in secondary school in Lafia Education zone of Nasarawa State.

6. Significance of the Study

This research work on the Impacts of Principal’s leadership style and Personality Profile on Effective Management of Secondary schools in Lafia Education Zone of Nasarawa State will be of immense importance to education administrator and the entire society in the following ways:

First, of all the research work will provide principals and other education administrators with information on the way personality profile determine leadership style and how leadership style in turn determine the success or failure of their schools.

The research work will furnish the school administrators with skills of self-assessment such as the impact of leadership style and personality profile on teachers’ performance, students’ performance, school discipline, school community relationship and so on.

The research work will provide the ministry of education with information for proper inspection and supervision of schools. It also makes the ministry of education to understand the disparity in the performance of secondary schools in the zone and take appropriate decision.

The research work will provide the community with information on leadership style and personality profile of principals so that they can advice appropriately on the appointment of principals to their schools. It also provides the parameters for assessing the performance of school and creates light on the responsibilities of the community to the school.

This research work will provide the students’ with knowledge of the impact of principal’s leadership style and personality profile on their academic performance and advice their parent appropriately on choice of school.

This research work is a contribution to the pool of knowledge on leadership style and personality profile. To this end it will serve as a source of reference to researchers.

This research work will provide parent with the knowledge on leadership styles and personality profile of principal’s of their children schools so that they can make inform decision on the choice of schools for their children.

7. Scope of the Study

This research work was delineated to the Impact of Principals’ Leadership Style and Personality Profile on Effective Management of Secondary Schools in Lafia Education Zone of Nasarawa State. Lafia Education Zone comprise of Lafia Central, Lafia East and Lafia North Development Areas.

The variables this research work is concerned with are; students academic performance, school community relationship, teachers performance, school discipline, welfare of staff and student and physical plant development and maintenance.

8. Definition of Terms

Leadership Style: Means the method a leader uses to provide leadership.

Impact: The negative and positive effect of a concept or phenomenon.

Effective Management: Means the planning, coordinating, directing, controlling and organizing human and material resource to achieve a target.

Personality Profile: A tool used to evaluate the intrinsic qualities of an employee’s in an effort to maximize his or her job performance and contribution.

Physical Plant Development and Maintenance: Means the construction and sustenance of built structures.

Students’ Academic Performance: Means the cognitive performance of student.

Teachers Performance: Means teacher output in terms of student’s academic performance.

School Discipline: The ability of the members of the school environment to conform to good conducts.

School Community Relationship: The symbiotic level of interaction between the school and the community where the school is located.

Staff and Student Welfare: The ability of the school to ensure the wellbeing of its members.

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter reviews related literature on the subject matter (impact of principal leadership style and personality profile on effective management of secondary schools) as presented by other researchers, authors and writers. The review is carried out base on the Theoretical framework, Conceptual framework, Summary of the Review of Related Literature and Literature Appraisal.

2.1 Theoretical Framework

This conceptual framework, detail in the review of literature and depicted as an exploratory model used to guide this research study and provides a focus (Merriam, 1998) to accomplished the purpose for this research. The theories and concepts of leadership, personality and management are reviewed as they relate to the subject matter.

2.1.1 Theory of Leadership

There are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept, to this end a staggering 10,062 articles were published on leadership between 2001- 2002; with an average of 419 articles per month (Storey, 2004). According to Fred C Lunenburd and Allan C Ornestein (2004), Ajayi (2000), and Olagoye (2004) there are many theories by different researchers on leadership. This goes to affirm the relative nature of the concept of leadership in consonant to all Social Science Concepts and the immense level of interest accord the leaderships in the scheme of things. Yukl (1998) observed that leadership has already been defined in various ways depending on researchers’ interest. It then means that there are many people that define the concept leadership in different perspective owing to its’ complex nature and their background knowledge. Owen (2001) concluded that it is not surprising that there are a number of competing descriptions and definitions of leadership. Throughout history no concept had ever generated the preponderance of interest and controversy like leadership. Leadership is a complex construct open to subjective interpretation. Plato (428-347 BC) believed only selected few with superior wisdom should be leaders. This assertion is seriously contested by contemporary scholars and theorists because individuals with superior wisdom most times do not become leaders during their life time. Aristotle (384-322 BC) concurred that, “from the moment of their birth, some are marked for subjugation and others for command”. This position on the concept is hinge on luck and destiny. In convergence to Aristotle, St. Paul said “only those deemed worthy through divine blessing could truly lead”.

According to Drucker in Benincasa (2012) “leadership is doing the right things”. This means doing the right things as a leader and also leading others to do the right things in a way that group target will be actualized is leadership. The act of doing the right things is time bound as such what is right today may be wrong tomorrow. To this end, doing what is done yesterday or doing it 5% better is no longer a formula for success Kotter (2012). According to him leadership means coping with change. Constant changes are more than ever necessary for survival and competition in this new changing world. To this end, leaders are in the positions to manage institution and organization to successes. This is because leadership creates the system that managers manage and change them in fundamental ways to take advantage of opportunities and avoid hazards Kotter (2012). Yukl (2002) concords with the view of Kotter when he said:

“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 group of people to

structure the activities and relationship in a

group or organization.”

Leadership is the initiation and maintenance of structure in expectation and interaction (Mayowa, 2009 cited Stogdill 1950). This implies that leadership is a platform for bringing the desired organizational changes that will yield the attainment of organizational goals and objectives.

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. Also leadership is a process of influence between a leader and followers (Hollander, 1987 cited in Mayowa, 2009). In support to the notion that leadership is an “influence” Mayowa, (2009) cited Cribbin (1981) who maintained that leadership is an influence process that enable managers to get their people to do willingly what must be done and do well what ought to be done. In furtherance, leadership can be viewed as the process of influencing the actions, behaviors, beliefs and goals of one actor in a social system by another actor with the willing cooperation of the actor being influenced. Leadership is defines as a process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement. To this end, leadership is concern with influencing people to act toward actualizing organization goals and objectives.

Adepoju (1998) conceived leadership in two ways:

1. As an organizational position
2. As an influence process

According to him, leadership as an organizational position refers to an individual who has been placed in a leadership or decision-making role by government. In consonant with the above assertion all managers whether educational or non-educational managers are leaders by definition. On the other hand he emphasized that a leader inspires others to follow. He suggests the dynamics of leadership; that is leadership as a process of influencing others towards the achievement of the organizational goals.

At the heart of most definition of the concept leadership are two indicators “providing direction” and “exercising influence”. Each of the indicators shaped the definition of the concept of leadership from one author to the other. Yukl notes leadership influences;

“... the interpretation of events to followers

The choice of objectives for the group or organization, the organization of work activities to accomplish objectives, the motivation of followers to achieve the objectives, the maintenance of cooperative relationship and team work and the enlistment of support and cooperation from people outside the group or organization” (1998).

Others definition of the concept of leadership as propound by more scholars inter’alia include;

“…leadership is like the Abominable Snowman, whose footprints are everywhere but is nowhere to be seen” (Bennis and Nanus: 1997).

Leadership is a process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal (Northouse, 2004).

Leadership is not a person or position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good (Ciulla, 1998)

Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less. (Maxwell, 1998)

Leadership is the art of mobilizing other to want to struggle for shared aspiration. (Rouze and Posner, 1995)

Leadership is the purposeful relationship which occurs episodically among participants, who use their individual skills in influence, to advocate transforming change (Kearns, 2005)

Leadership is an intangible quality with no clear definition. That’s is probably a good thing, because, if the people who were being led knew the definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them (Adams, 1996)

Leadership is a social process in which one individual influence the behavior of others with the use of threat or violence. (Buchannan and Huczynski, 1997)

Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand individual influence and be committed (Drath and Palus, 1994)

Leadership is about two things; process and behavior (Baker, 2002)

The many definitions accrued to leadership does not signified confusion it is an affirmation of the complexity of the concept. All the definition of leadership had a pointer to leadership as an instrument of influence. According to Yukl (1998) most definition of leadership reflects the notion that leadership is an influential process whereby the leader exerts intentional influence over the followers. This is to say influencing people to act toward a specific goal is leadership. Also leadership involves an understanding of the behaviors of people in groups. Leadership is a process not a person, its’ involves the leader, the led and the ways of influencing all parties to achieve organizational goals. Murray (2012) saw leadership as less about your needs, more about the people and the organization you are leading. This research is poise to determine the best mixed of leadership styles that will bring about effectiveness in the school system.

Leadership Theories

Humphreys, Jiao and Sadler (2008) noted that those fascinated by the leader-follower connection have long explored the various factors that influence such a multifaceted relationship. The situation engendered the myriad of academic theories and studies on leadership.

Ajibade (2005) maintained that administrators of education, managing as they do an enterprise which is critically related to the well-being of our society, cannot continue to rely solely on the benefits of experience and practice that are not founded on sound theoretical guidelines. Is on the bases of the above assertion, it became imperative to consider the various theories of leadership in other to fully conceptualize the concept of leadership. This research tries to observe which leadership style were exemplified by effective leaders.

For decades, leadership theories have been the source of numerous studies both in reality as well as in practice, many have tried to define what allows authentic leaders to stand apart from the mass. According to IAAP (2009) until approximately 1930, there was not much academic interest in the area of leadership. The early leadership theories focused on what qualities distinguished between leaders and followers, subsequent theorist looked at other variables such as situational factor and skills level. Faria (2014) contented that leadership theories are assumption about distinguished characteristics of a particular kind of leader. Wolinsk (2010) asserted that there is a wide and ever growing variety of theories to explain the concept and practice of leadership. Russell (2011) added that there are many leadership theories and styles. “These options make virtually impossible for professionals to agree concerning” the concept and theory of leadership.

Leadership theories focus on determining specific qualities, skills levels, that separate participative leadership theories as among the most common (Faria 2014). Wolinsk (2010) revealed that most theories viewed leadership as grounded in one or more of the following three perspectives: leadership as a process or relationship, leadership as a combination of traits or personality characteristic, leadership as certain behavior as they are most commonly referred to, leadership skills. The following are some of the leadership theories:

Trait Theory

This theory is also called the Great Man theory of leadership because of the assumption that leadership is inherited. However, they differ in the sense that Great Man theory has gender connotation while trait theory is gender neutral.

According to Wolinski (2010) the trait theory postulates that people are either born or not born with the quality that predisposes them to success in leadership roles. This means that leadership is inherited. This trend of leadership is rooted in the monarchical system of government, where the king or queen is usual, replaced by his or her son or daughter. Furthermore, Carlyle (1841) identified the talents, skills and physical characteristics of men who rose to power. Other scholars examined traits such as intelligence, birth order, socio-economic status and child-bearing practices ( Stogdill, 1948, 1974) as factors that determine who becomes a leader. Also Ibukun and Oyewole (1997) confirmed that, there are traits essential to leadership. However Stogdill (1974) proposed six category of personal factors associated with leadership; capacity, achievement, responsibility, participation, status, and situation but contented that such a narrow characterization of leadership trait is insufficient. The earlier time, it was thought to be enough the personality traits of leaders in explaining leadership. In contemporary time, one might still admire someone with traits (such as courage, character and wisdom), but would not assume they ensure effectiveness for a particular set of leadership functions (DuBrins and Dalglish, 2003). Furthermore, a person who is popular with potential followers may find it easier to assume leadership, not all who are well-liked are leaders; also, sometimes leaders are respected but are not regarded with any particular warmth (Yulk, 2002). Stogdill (1948) argued that a person does not become a leader by virtue of some combination of traits. This assertion confirm the fact that trait or combination of traits does or do not define a leader. Some people may have the traits of leader but never become leaders during their life time.

Behavioral Theory

The weaknesses that shrouded the Trait Theory as an insufficient leadership theory led to the emergence of researches in the 1940s and 1950s. Ibukun and Oyewole (1997) observed that the dissatisfaction with the trait approach to leadership, namely what the leader does and how he/she does it, sparked a series of research studies. Stogdill (1948) and Mann (1959) found that while some traits are common across a number of studies, the overall evident suggested that persons who are leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in all situations. So the Behavioral theory focused on leader’s effectiveness, not an emergence of an individual as a leader (Ibukun and Oyewole, 1997). Leadership effectiveness is hinge on two dimensions; task orientation and employee orientation. The two research works that are eminent in the Behavioral theory are the Ohio State University Studies and University of Michigan Studies. Brown (1965) affirmed that the overall objectives of the Ohio State Studies was to examined the patterns of behavior of persons designated to be leaders, i.e. those who satisfy common group needs.

In the belief of the Behavioral theorist in leadership, leaders are made they are not born, as leadership behaviors can be learn through teaching and observation. There are two types of leadership behaviors that a leader can adopt base on the research for the Ohio and Michigan Studies; the concern for people as a leadership behavior and the concern for production as leadership behavior. The Ohio Studied was conducted by Stogdill and Feishman shortly after the Second World War. They found that a leader’s behavior can be base on initiating structure or consideration. Initiating Structure involve behaviors in which the leader organizes and defines the relationship in the group, tends to establish well define patterns of the organization and channel of communication and ways of getting the job done. Leaders who initiate structure emphasize goals and deadlines, make sure employees are assigned tasks and know what performance are expected of them (Stogdill; 1974). However, Consideration involves leaders’ behavior, indicating friendship, mental trust, warmth and rapport between leader and subordinates (Halpin; 1996). A leader can give high premium to Initiating Structure and also high premium to Consideration or vice versa.

The Michigan Study emerges as a result of the criticism of the Ohio Study. Vroom (1998) believed that the Ohio Study lacks generalization. The Michigan Studies was conducted by Likert, Katz and Kalm of the Institute of Social Research of the University of Michigan. The studies classified leadership behavior in two; production-centered and employee-centered. A production-centered leader emphasizes rigid work standard, employee’s tasks, and methods used to accomplish the tasks. The leader also supervises closely, provides instruction, check on performance and acts in a punitive manner. The employee-centered leader emphasizes the employee, their personal needs, advancement and achievement, and maintain a good interpersonal relationships, delegates responsibilities and authorities to the subordinates, grants considerable freedom and supportive environment. This studies show that a leader can develop the best blend of behavior using production or employee as his/her priorities. The Michigan University study stressed that the effectiveness of leadership style should not be evaluated solely by productivity measures, but should include other employee centered or related measures, such as satisfaction. The Ohio and Michigan Studies led to the formulation of Managerial Grid by Blake and Mouton (1964). On the Grid 1.1 implies low concern for production and people. 1.9 implies low concern for production and high concern for people. 9.1 imply high concern for production and low concern for people. 5.5 imply an equilibrium (balance) concern for both production and people. 9.9 imply high concern for both production and people. 9.9 is the best Grid.

Kurt Lewis in 1939 developed the bases for determining leaders’ behavior using leadership style. A leader with concern for work can adopt autocratic style, while a leader with concern for people can adopt laissez faire style and leader with concern for both work and people can adopt democratic style. McGregor’s X theory and Y theory (1960) can also be used to explain leaders’ behavior. The X theory explains the behavior of a production-centered leader while the Y theory explains the behavior of a people-centered leader. Blake and Mouton (1964) defined the relationships of three attributes of leaders; concern for production, concern for people and hierarchy positional attributes. The third attribute of hierarchy is the manner a leader manages the concern for people and concern for production. The authors maintained that only the 9.9 style (Managerial Grid) represents a successful integration of human and organizational values in all situations.

Situational Theory

In the 1960s, researchers recognized the limitation of the behavioral theories and began to refine and develop new approaches to the study of leadership. The situational theory of leadership was developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchards in 1969. This theory focuses on the situation that precipitated the adoption of a particular leadership style rather than the qualities of the leader. Vroom (1998) affirmed that the focus of the situational theorist is that the situation with which a leader finds himself or herself will dictates his or her actions or behaviors. They argued that no theory could be regard as the best; hence the situation will determine the course of action. leadership can afford to neglect the group characteristics or organizational conditions under which that leadership is to be exercise. Situational Leadership theorist claimed that, “leadership is determined not so much by the character of the individuals as by the requirement of the social situation”. The situational theory demands that different situation requires different style of leadership. The situational theorist observed that for a leader to be successful he or she must have the ability to adapt their style of leadership to the circumstances of the situation give the level of commitment and competence of the followers. The best leaders are those who can use many different behavioral styles, and choose the right style for each situation.

Hersey and Blanchards Situational Leadership theory rest on two fundamental concepts; leadership style and individual or group’s maturity level.

Leadership Style

This is characterized in terms of task behavior and the relationship behavior that the leader have with the follower. Hersey and Blanchards divided leadership style behavior into four, which they named S1 to S4.

• Telling (S1): the leader demonstrates high directive behavior and low supportive behavior.
• Selling (S2): the leader demonstrates high directive behavior and high supportive behavior.
• Participating: (S3) the leader demonstrates low directive behavior and high supportive behavior.
• Delegating (S4): the leader demonstrates low directive behavior and low supportive behavior.

Of these, no one style is considered optimal for all leaders to use at all times. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves to the prevailing situation. According to Hersey and Blanchards, knowing when to use each style is dependent on the maturity level of the person or group you are leading. They break down maturity into four M1 to M4:

• M1- the followers lack commitment and lack competence.
• M2- the followers lack competence but have commitment.
• M3- the followers lack commitment but have competence.
• M4- the followers have competence and have commitment.

Maturity level is task specific. A person may be general skilled, confident and motivated in his job, but might still have a maturity level of M1 when asked to perform task he does not possess skills for. A good leader developed the competence and commitment of their people so they’re self-motivated rather than dependent on others for direction and guidance. Hersey also affirmed that a leader’s high realistic expectation causes high performance of followers; a leader’s low expectation leads to low performance of followers. According to Blanchards “four combinations of competence and commitment make up the development level”.

• D1- low competence and high commitment.
• D2- low competence and low commitment.
• D3- high competence and low commitment.
• D4- high competence and high commitment.

Hersey and Blanchards identify four developmental levels and suggested that leaders should match these with four Style of leadership S1 to S4, as thus:

1. D1- low competence and low commitment

S1- Telling and directing

2. D2- low competence and high commitment

S2- coaching and telling

3. D3- high competence and low commitment

S3- participating and supporting

4. D4- high competence and high commitment

S4- delegating.

Leadership theories were propounded to show the light while leadership styles were propounded to lead the way. The Hersey and Blanchards Situational Theory of Leadership provide the light to the underlining fact about this research work but the theory oversimplified the concept of leadership style. S1 to S4 is a way of trivializing the work of so many scholars and their contribution to leadership development. All leadership styles can be applied base on prevailing situation.

Leadership style is a leader’s way or style of providing direction, implementing plans and motivating people. Leadership style is the result of the personality, philosophies and experience of the leader. Different situations call for different leadership styles. In an emergency where there is little time to converge for an agreement and where the leader has more experience and expertise than the team, an autocratic leadership style is most effective; however in a team with average experience and expertise a democratic or laissez faire style of leadership is more effective. The style adapt should be the one that most effectively achieve the objectives of the group while balancing the interest of its’ individual members. For a leader to be effective he or she should vary the leadership styles adapted in consonant to the situation at hand.

Leadership styles are varying; as such these styles are as many as there are leaders. Some leadership styles inter alia include:

5. Engagement Style: Stephen Cohen has mentioned engagement as one of four leadership practice for tough times. He writes, “These initiatives do for the organization is engaging both leader and employees in understanding the existing conditions and how they can collectively assist in addressing them.” The leader effectively communicates the impact of the organizational conditions or situations on the employees and the organization, to have their consent to turn things around for the good of all. This style is situational in perspective.
6. Autocratic or Authoritarian Style: under this style all the powers of decision making are centralized in the leader, as a dictator. The leaders do not entertain any suggestions and initiatives from the subordinates. In an emergency situation where there is no time for consultation and agreement this leader style is the best.
7. Democratic and Participative Leadership Style: this style opts for power sharing with group members by promoting the interest of group members and by practicing social equalities. The Democratic style of leadership is good in a situation where the leader is of average experience and expertise with the group members. This condole consultative and joint decision-making and execution.
8. Laissez-faire or Free Rein Leadership Style: the leader is only in a leadership position but does not provide leadership, leaving the group to take responsibility for their actions. The subordinates are giving freedom in deciding their own polices and methods. The subordinates are motivated to be creative and innovative. This is a situation where the leader delegates responsibilities to the subordinates and believes the experience and expertise of the subordinates to execute without leadership.
9. Narcissistic Leadership Style: this is the style in which the leader is only interested in him or herself. Their priority is themselves not their group or the members. The leader exhibited the characteristics of narcissist; arrogance, dominance and hostility. It is a common leadership style. Narcissism may range anywhere between healthy and destructive. Individualism is naturally egocentric as such any competitive move by any member is handled by a narcissistic style. So this leadership style is used to subdue competition against the leader. To critics, “narcissistic leadership (preferable destructive) is driven by unyielding arrogance, self-absorption, and a personal egocentric need for power and admiration” (Neider and Schrieshiem, 2010).
10. Toxic Leadership Style: A toxic leader is one who has responsibility over a group of people or an organization, and abuses the leader-follower relationship by leaving the group or organization in a worse-off condition than when he or she joined it. This leadership style occurs in a nonchalant situation exhibited by the leader.
11. Task-oriented and Relationship-oriented Leadership Style:

Task-oriented leadership is a style of leadership in which the leader focused on the task that need to be perform in order to meet a certain production goal. This kind of leaders are concern in producing a step-by-step solution to problem or goal, making sure deadlines are met result and reaching target outcomes (Manktelow, 2012).

Relationship-oriented leadership is a contrasting style in which the leader is more focused on relationship amongst the group and is generally more concern with the well being and satisfaction of the group (Griffin, Ebert and Ricky, (2010).

12. Transactional Leadership Style: this style was first described by Max Weber 1947 and later described by Bernard Bass in 1981. The transactional leaders focus their leadership on motivating the followers through a system of reward and punishment. This leader identifies the needs of the followers and gives reward to satisfy those needs in exchange of certain level of performance. The leader is task-oriented and people-oriented. This style works well where the emotional level of employee has lower impact on job performance.
13. Transformational Leadership Style: this style of leadership does not limit the leader perception about the follower. The style focuses on changing or transforming the needs or redirecting the thinking of the followers. Leaders that follow this style challenge and inspire the followers with a sense of purpose and excitement. This style works in a situation where the leader is charismatic and considerate. The followers in this situation have to be aspiring and determine for the style to work.
14. Paternalistic Leadership Style: this style provides a father figure for the followers in the person of the leader. The leader complete concern for the follower and in return received their complete trust and loyalty. The workers under this style are to be completely loyal and not strive off or work independently. The leader builds a family of the workers at work and outside work. This style of leadership can lead to favoritism and then exclusion of a segment of the work force. This style work best in an apprentice situation.
15. Sex Differences Leadership Style: this leadership style can also be gender sensitive. When men and women come together in group they tent to adopted different styles. The men are task-oriented, decision focused, active, independent and goal-oriented. The women on the other hand strive to be helpful toward others, warm in relationship, understanding and mindful of others feelings. These qualities show the men are task-oriented while women are relationship-oriented. It can be stated from the foregoing that any organization with the desire to increase production should go for a male leader and the organization with the need for improve employer-employee relationship should have a female leader. It is important to note that these sexes are tendencies and do not manifest themselves within men and women across all groups and situation.
16. Servant Leadership Style: this is a style of leadership in which the leaders assume the status of a servant. It suggested that the leader should place the needs of the costumers, followers and the community ahead of his or her own in order to be effective. This idea of leadership has significant popularity in the leadership circles, but is seem more as values or believes than a style of leadership.
17. Skilled Leadership Style: this is the style that advocates that learned knowledge and acquired skills or abilities are significant factors in the practice of effective leadership. It is base on this style of leadership that effort and resource are devoted to training and development in most organizations. This is base on saying “when you stop learning, you stop growing. This works well in an organization that the leader and followers are ready and will to learn and acquire knowledge and skills.

The above leadership styles have situational dimension, as such their application or utilization are base on the situation confronting the leader at a time.

2.1.2 Personality

There are so many definitions of the term personality. Mayer (2007) asserted that the many definitions of personality was not due the concept but rather, were due to the failure of personality experts to use and assert those definitions. There is one central definition of personality in use today and historically, although it is worded differently by various psychologists, the central idea remain the same (Mayer, 2007).The consensus definition of personality is “personality is a system of parts that is organized, developed and is expressed in a person’s action” (Mayer, 2007). Some other definitions that found expression in the one above are:

• Personality refers to an individual’s characteristics patterns of thoughts, emotions and behaviors together with the psychological mechanisms-hidden or not-behind those patterns (Funder, 2004).
• Personality is a set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptation to, the intra-psychic, physical and social environment (Larsen and Buss, 2005).
• Personality psychology is the scientific study of the whole person… psychology is about many things: perception, attention, cognition, memory, neurons and brain circuitry… we try to understand the individual human being as a complex whole… and to construct a scientifically credible account of human individuality (McAdams, 2006).
• Personality is the organized developing system within the individualism that represents the collective action of that individual’s major psychological subsystem (Mayer, 2007).
• Personality refers to those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of feelings, thinking and behaving (Pervin, Cervone and John, 2005).
• Personality is the dynamic organization within an individual, the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristics behavior and thought.
• Personality is the characteristic or blend of characteristics that make a person unique (Weinberg and Gould, 1999).

Personality Theories

Personality theory is a branch of psychology which studies the theories of personality and individual differences. Many psychologists have proposed theories that try to explain the origin of personality. There are six main school of thought regarding personality:

• Psychodynamic
• Humanistic
• Constitution
• Trait
• Social cognitive
• Behavioral

Psychodynamic Theory: Sigmund Freud

Freud theory was one of the first and most influential in the field which reveal how personality evolves from childhood to adulthood. The theory focuses on the power of inner forces as a motivator to shape personality without awareness. Freud theories are base on psychic determinism…this has it that our early life determines our behavior and unconscious reactions. He believes we all have certain drives and instincts which guide our behavior. Eros is an instinct which seeks to preservers a species; libido is the sexual energy and Thanatos is our desire to return to the womb; shown in aggressive and destructive behaviors.

According to Freud each individual has a fixed amount of psychic energy that can be used to satisfy basic urges and instincts and to grow psychologically. As a child emerges, the psychic energy is divided into three constructs of personality.

• Id: this is the child within us that seek the expression of wishes and emotions (called the pleasure principle). At birth all psychic energy resides in the Id-the irrational, illogical, impulsive part of the personality.
• Ego: uses the reality principle to satisfy the Id and superego safely in the real world. This is the rational dimension of personality, it begin to emerge during infancy when the psychic energy is been diverted from the Id to energized the cognitive process such as perception, learning and problem solving.
• Super ego: this uses the society’s values and morals. The parent within us which is guided by idealistic principles. The super ego develops from the ego as 3-6 years old children internalize the moral standard and values of their parents. Once the super ego emerges children have parental voice in their heads the keep them from violating societal rules and make them feel guilty or ashamed if they do so.

According to Freud personality was formed during the first five years of life…early experiences play a large role in personality development and continue to influence behavior later in life. Freud does not see personality development continuing later in life.

Humanistic Personality Theory: Abraham Maslow

The humanistic theory focuses on the here and now, it also help the individual through the process of unconditional support in achieving self-actualization. Abraham Maslow like other humanist believed in self actualization tendency. Maslow well known contribution is the hierarchy of needs, which is used to summarized the belief system of humanistic psychology. The focus of the theory of need is that we are born with certain needs. Without satisfying these needs, we cannot move on in life and achieve other needs. The first level of needs is called the physiological needs, or basic needs for survival. Without for food, water, sleep and oxygen nothing else in life matters. Other needs as propounded by Maslow were need for safety and security; needs for belonging and love; esteem need and self actualization. According to Maslow self actualization is the final level in the hierarchy of needs.

This theory was hinged on positive potential of human beings. Maslow positioned his work as a vital compliment to Freud’s work. His work focus on self actualizing people, the self actualizing people indicate a coherent personality syndrome and represent optimal psychological health and functioning. According to Maslow self actualized people share the following qualities truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness, dichotomy, aliveness, perfection, necessity, completion, justice, order, simplicity, richness, playfulness and self sufficiency.

Constitutional Personality Theory: Hippocrates

Hippocrates believes that our personality are shaped by the four basic fluid in our body; black bite: sad or melancholic, blood: sanguine or cheerful, phlegm: phlegmatic or apathetic, yellow bite: choleric, excitable.

Trait Personality Theory: Gordon Allport and H.S Odbert

Gordon believed that every individual had their own unique constellation of traits. Working in conjunction with H.S Odbert they identified 17,953 words from the dictionary that described personality. Out of the number only about 4500 made up stable or enduring traits. When synonyms were removed the list reduced to 200 words. Raymond Cattell found that when the 200 traits were attributed to people they tended to cluster around each other. Base on his research called Factor Analysis there were between 16 to 25 basic personality traits. Tupes and Christal subsequently demonstrated that there were only five dimensions of personality.

Social Cognitive Theory: Albert Bandura

This theory is also refers to as social learning theory. Bandura believe that we developed behavior base on observational learning. He also asserted that individual evaluates their behavior in a situation base on internal expectancies and the environmental feedback from such behavior can alter the internal expectancies for future behavior.

Behavioral Personality Theory: F.B Skinner and John Watson

F.B Skinner believed that a person’s behavior were as a result of past conditioning rather than innate personality characteristics and so their behaviors are base on what work for them in the past, in other words are conditioned to response to environmental stimuli. As such new behavior can change due to stimuli.

Personality Profile

Profile is an analysis representing the extent to which something exhibits various characteristics. It can also be define as a slide view of an object or structure, especially the human head. Personality profile is a set of characteristics or qualities that identify a type or category of a person or thing. In management, personality profile is a knowledge management tools used to provide an evaluation of an employee’s personal attributes, values and life skills in an effort to maximize his or her performance and contribution to the company.

2.2 Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework of this research work is base on three important notions: leadership style, personality profile and effective management in secondary schools. The conceptual framework detail in the review of literature and depicts an explanatory model, is used to guide this research study and provide a focus (Marriam, 2006) to achieve the purpose of the study.

2.2.1 Effective Management

Leadership style and personality profile are essential tools of effective management of human and material resources. Leadership effectiveness is contingent upon the interaction of certain leadership attributes with specific demand of the environment. To this end, for a leader to ensure maximum performance and productivity he or she must adjust his or her individuality to fit the condition of the organization (Ibukun and Oyewole, 1997). Situation faced by leadership varies as such leaders must vary their leadership style and adjust their personality in other to be productive.

In a school setting the determinants of effective management include school goals, instructional leadership, opportunity to learn, school climate, staff development, collegial teacher interaction, share governance, and parental involvement. A great deal of research has been conducted to discover those leadership behaviors and practices that contribute to school effectiveness (Halinger and Heck 1996). The situational approach to leadership in decision making is the best practice to ensure human dynamics and conditional changes are used in the best way to achieve effectiveness. One way approach to issues is counter-productive but varying approaches bring out the best in each situation. The nature of management and managers and of leaders and leadership is highly problematic. “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right things”. The aforementioned, goes to affirm that leaders must be manager to be effective and vice versa. The extent to which a school system is able to accomplish its stated objectives determines its quality or level of effectiveness (Salaman, 2004)

2.2.2 Impact of Leadership Style and Principals’ personality on School/Community Relationship

The school can be viewed in two angles: it is a model of a community and is also a community school. This means the school and the community have symbiotic existence. The school is created to ensure individuals are nurture to fit and function properly in the community. So the principal as the manager of the school must ensure that the school is in close relation with the community. This can be through ensuring cooperation in a democratic procedure, possessing organizational ability for leadership, and understanding that there are unlimited human and material resources in every community that can be organized and used to facilitate effective school community relationship (Ibukun and Oyewole, 1997).

The principal can promote school community relationship by ensuring that his or her leadership style engenders the participation of the community in school’s educational programs; as resource persons can drawn from the community to enrich instructional delivery in schools. Also it is the responsibility of the school to inform the community about the conditions, achievement and needs of the school. It is paramount for the principal to ensure that his or her leadership style and personality profile does not strangulate or hamper effective school community relationship.

2.2.3Impact of Principal’s Leadership Style and Personality Profile on School Physical Plant Development and Maintenance

The principal is the chief works officer of the school. It is his or her responsibility to ensure the physical structure development of the school and the maintenance of such facilities or structures. The principal maintains an inventory of school property, accounts for monies released for physical plant development, purchase and requisition supplies and materials. According to Ibukun and Oyewole (1997) evaluating the financial and physical resources represents a dynamic and demanding aspect of the principal’s role.

The leadership style of the principal should be adjusted to accommodate any physical and structural development of the school. In any meaningful organization, a leader need to make the environment conducive for their subordinate (Oyegoke, 2012). As such the personality and leadership style of the principal should be adopted to facilitate formulation, execution and maintenance of physical plant with in the school. Bass and Stiedlmeire (1998) argued that the desire change can be brought about only if the leaders foster the model of values of honesty, loyalty, and fairness and at the end values of justice, equity and human right.

2.2.4 Impact of Leadership Style and Principal’s personality on Student’s Academic Performance

The principal as the instructional leader of his or her school is responsible for ensuring that environment for the learning and interaction in the school is conducive enough. Bamidele (2002) posited that the combination of the three domain of learning makes the recipient of education lived fulfill live and contribute meaningfully to the society he (she) lives. This shows that learning effectiveness in school transcend students passing an examination only (cognitive). It encompasses student’s attainment in the affective and psychomotor domain (Oyegoke, 2012). Babayemi (2006) observe that the behavior of leaders have been identify as one of the major thing influencing the productivity of subordinate in an organization in which the school system is not an exception.

The principal as a curriculum leader of his or her school is responsible for designing, implementing and evaluating changes in the instructional program of the school (Ibukun and Oyewole, 2012). To this end, the principal is expected to adopted a leadership style and personality profile that will effectively enhance curriculum design, implementation and evaluation to ensure that the student learn in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain of education. The situational leadership theory is the best for this condition, considering the dynamics of the environment.

2.2.5 Impact of leadership Style and Personality of Principals on Discipline of Students

The principal is the chief law enforcer of his or her school as he or she must be seen as the custodian of the law. Discipline in the school is the observation of laws and regulations, maintenance of established standard of behavior and respect to school authority. Students discipline means students are provided with the opportunity to exercise self-control to solve school problems, to learn and to promote their welfare in the school. A disciplined person is orderly, responsible, diligent, sympathetic, cooperative, honest, considerate, and always tries to do the right thing.

The principal must administer disciplinary measures with justice, equity and fairness to all parties under his jurisdiction. Leadership style and personality of the principal must not be allowed to impact negatively on discipline in the school.

2.2.6 Impact of Leadership Styles and Personality of Principals on Teachers Performance

The principal and the teachers are partners in the educational program. If the effectiveness of the principal is reflected on the effectiveness of the teachers then the school is effective. The principal should ensure the involvement of all staff in workshops, seminars, conferences, in-service and lectures aim at improving teacher delivery. The view that an educational leader must stimulates a lively and dynamic approach with teachers by prodding government authorities to provide regular in-service training cannot be overemphasized. The principal should be the chief source of inspiration, assistants, advice, stimulation, instruction and guidance to the beginning teachers (Ibukun and Oyewole, 1997). To the old teacher the principal should develops opportunities and channels to enable their participation in policy making processes, the planning of programs, and carry out of decision jointly agreed upon (Ibukun and Oyewole, 1997).

In order to achieve effectiveness in teacher performance there is the need for the principal to be task oriented and people oriented. He or she must adopt the situational approach to leadership.

2.2.7 Impact of Leadership Style and Personality of Principal on Welfare of Staff and Students

The welfare of the staff and students is an important aspect of school management. The main task of the school head (principal) are interpreting policy, executing curriculum program, seeing to students and staff welfare, equipment provision, …, and finally maintaining effective school community relationship. The principal should ensure that the physical needs of staff and students are properly made. The salaries of staff should not be delayed for whatever reason if he or she is expected to impact knowledge with commitment. Also the students should be well cared for in terms of feeding, clothing and shelter.

This aspect of management shows the human side of the principal. The principal should show concern to every human being that is a stakeholder in the school. He or she must adopt leadership style base on prevailing situation and avoid any personality that ostracize people. This entails that the principals’ should be altruistic in all perspective.

2.3 Review of Empirical Study

This sub-section will discuss related empirical research carried out by other researchers in respect to leadership style and personality of principals.

Ibukun, Oyewole and Abe (2011) carried out a research on the topic “Personality Characteristics and Principal Leadership Effectiveness in Ekiti State, Nigeria”. Descriptive survey research design was used to carry out the study which is primarily focused on personality characteristics and leadership effectiveness.

The population surveyed consisted of principals and teachers of public secondary schools in Ekiti State. At the time of the study there were one hundred and sixty nine public secondary schools in the state. The researchers used the random sampling techniques to select fifty schools and one hundred principal as there were two principal in each school (junior and senior secondary school). This allowed for good representative sample. Ten teachers were randomly selected from each school (junior and senior secondary school). Therefore the participants of the study consisted of one hundred principals and five hundred teachers.

The investigators utilized two instruments: the Principal Demographic Inventory (PID) was used for the principals while the Principal Leadership Effectiveness Inventory (PLEI) was used for the teachers. The researchers constructed some questionnaires after careful review of some literatures. The PDI was completed by the school principals and consist of simple questions on variables such as age, sex, number of years of experience, professional qualification, size of school and location. The PLEI consisted of Likert type 4-point summated rating scale and measure the effectiveness of principals. It is consisted of thirty questions base on five leadership task domain of the principal: instructional program, staff personnel administration, student personal administration, financial and physical resources and school community relationship.

The validity and the reliability of the two instruments (PDI and PLEI) were analyst using a Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), to find the Cronbach Alpha of values of 0.824 and 0.812 respectively. Then the researchers found the instruments to be valid and reliable based on the blue-print of for determining the validity and reliability of instrument as suggested by Macintosh (1997).

The data obtained through the PDI and PLEI were analyst, and all hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significant level using SPSS.

The researchers found that there is a link between principal age and their leadership effectiveness. The older principals were perceived to be more effective in school leadership. The result is in concomitant with the observation of Ogunsanya (2001), whose study showed a positive relationship existed between principals’ productivity and age. Although the research if in conflict with the findings of a study carried out by Glasscock (1991), which found the age does not affect principals’ performance in their administrative performance. Glasscock study has no nexus with Okolo (2001) who found that age tended to affect Headmasters’ administrative effectiveness. The result of this study explains that it is imperative to appoint individual above 45 years as school principals’. The second hypothesis showed that there is no significant difference in the leadership effectiveness of male and female principal’s as perceived by teachers. This finding is supported by Adigwu (2004), where he observed that both male and female principals’ have above average performance in their supervisory role. The result of this research also corroborated the finding of Osezuah (2000), which indicated no significant difference between male and female graduates in job performance in organizations in Nigeria.

The third hypothesis showed that there is a significant difference between principals’ years of experience and leadership effectiveness. In congruent to this finding Alily (2000) showed a significant difference between medium-experience and short-experience teachers.

Oyegoke (2012) conducted a research on the relationship between principal’s leadership style and effectiveness of secondary schools in Ondo State, Nigeria. The correlation research design of the survey type was adopted. The population consisted of all the principals and teachers in the 300 secondary schools in Ondo State. The Multistage, simple and proportionate stratified random sampling techniques were used to selected the 60 principals and 1200 teachers and the 60 schools used for the research. The self-made instrument call Principal Leadership Style and Effectiveness of Secondary School Education Questionnaire (PLSESSEQ) was used to collect the data for the study. The data collected were analyzed using frequency count, percentage score, and the Pearson Product Movement Correlation (r) statistics. The hypothesis formulated was test 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that the principal’s leadership style in the area covered is encouraging. The study also showed that secondary school were effective in the affective and psychomotor domains, but need to improve on the cognitive domain. This assertion was contrary to the submission of Oladele (2006) who affirmed that secondary schools are no longer effective as must secondary school student cannot express themselves in simple English and are full of moral decadences. However, this research findings on low cognitive performance was supported by the submission of Ajayi (2002), WACE (2007) and Adeyemi (2008), who viewed that the student academic performance which members of the public used mainly to measure the effectiveness of schools has witness unprecedented setback. Base on the finding, it was recommended that school principal school evolve the transactional and transformational leadership style and be situational in their approach. This was in consistence with the study of Babayemi (2006) and Ibukun (2008). The government should support the schools with all the necessary resources to aid the principal’s efforts in improving the performance of students in both the internal and external examinations.

Ali (2011) carried out a research on Relationship between Personality Traits and Performance among School Principals in Isfahan, Iran. The researcher adopted a descriptive correlation research design. It is also called descriptive, because the research tries to present an objective and disciplined description of a topic or situation. It is also correlation because it studied variables. The research does not examine cause and effect relationship but tries to find the relative positive and negative relations of different variables. The statistical group of the research is Elementary, Junior High and High Schools principals. The statistics available of 323 teachers and 57 principals and the population of the research have drawn 175 teachers and 50 principals through stratified random sampling techniques for the purpose of the research.

The researcher used two kinds of questionnaires: standardized questionnaire of Eysenck (1981, EPQ) having 57 items which is used to studied principal’s personality characteristics, and Weiss K, Questionnaire (1998) was used to study their performance and had 71 questions. The Chronbach alpha coefficient was used, the coefficient of both questionnaire were 0.98 and 0.81 respectively, it showed they are chosen correctly. The analysis of the research data is done using SPSS software version No 16 in descriptive and inferential statistical levels.

The research finding showed that there is a direct relationship between the personality characteristics of principal and their performance. It means the performance of extrovert principals is more than the performance of introvert principals. The submission of Khakpour (2004), Nazem (2005), Kraus (2002), Moran (2000) and Gurr et’al (2005) supported the finding; because they assert the relationship between introvert and extrovert principals and their ways of managing and considerable characteristics can also help students progress. The researcher also found that the principals that have stable emotion perform better than those with neurotic challenges. This result is similar to those of Khakpour, Nazem, Moran, and Gurr.

2.4 Summary of the Review of Related Literature

The literature of experts reviewed in this study has endeavored and exhibited that leadership style and personality profile of a leader and by extension principal have a profound impact on the effective management of schools.

The review has demonstrated the impact of leadership and personality of the principal on student academic performance, school/community relationship, teacher performance, welfare of teachers and students, physical plant development and maintenance and discipline. The review was concluded with the empirical work of other researcher on the impact of leadership style and personality of principals on management of schools.

The review has shown that the principal that adopted the situational leadership approach is often successful in effective management of their schools. However those principals’ that used situational leadership approach with proper regulation on their personality characteristics are always superlatively effective in the management of their schools. It is also observed that the used of one type of leadership style can enhance productivity and damage relationship on one hand or enhance consideration for people on the other hand to the detriment of productivity. To this ends, which ever style of leadership a leader adopt must be balance in application toward work and people consideration. No straight jacket application of leadership style should be entertain by principals’. The review also encourage principals’ to ensure they vary their leadership style taking into consideration it impact on the management, staff, students and the environment.

2.5 Literature Appraisal

This aspect in the review of literature is concern with the level that the literature review satisfy its’ purpose. The reviewed literature provides the stand point of a pool of researches on related topics. The literature did not provide the holistic perspective to the topic of the research, it only provide information to fulfill the mandate of this chapter of the research as stipulate by standard practice.

The review could not ascertain the role played by leadership style and personality on effective management of schools, as it only made a tangential link to the leadership style and personality of principals’ in the school system. The purpose of this research work is to ascertain the impact of leadership style and personality on effective management of schools.

The literature review is only thirty percent (30%) relevant to this research, this goes to affirm that concept of personality profile and effective management in school system are not sufficient in this review to satisfy the demand of literature clarity for the research work.

The literature reviewed signified that the topic of research is only unique in all respect, as there is no research of the same variables as the topic of the research Impact of Principals’ Leadership Style and Personality Profile on Effective Management of Secondary School in Lafia Educational Zone.

The literature did not affirm that personality is the determinant of leadership style and leadership style is the determinant of success or failure of any organization.

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