The Impact of Leadership on Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Colleges across the world share a common goal of wanting to improve academic performance of students. In this era of culpability, the pressure for principals to improve students' performance has increased. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the best leadership style adopted by principals of vocational colleges in Kenya. Lecturers in selected vocational colleges were issued with a modified Bass's multi-factor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) to aid the data collection process. Structural equation model (SEM) approach was used to test a model that measures principals' best leadership style on learning outcomes. The study established that principals practiced more transactional leadership. In addition, transactional leadership style significantly and positively influenced learning outcomes. The findings have a variety of implications to vocational training and future research direction.