Leadership and Management: A Conceptual and Framework Discourse in Educational Management (Published)
The concepts of leadership and management remain central to scholarly debate, particularly in educational management. Although often used interchangeably, these terms denote distinct yet complementary roles vital to organisational success. This paper explores the core concepts of leadership and management, focusing on their definitions, required skills, styles, and similarities and differences. Leadership is defined as the ability to influence, inspire, motivate, and guide individuals or groups towards common goals. In contrast, management is described as the systematic process of planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling resources to achieve organisational objectives. The paper reviews various leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, transformational, servant, authentic, adaptive, digital, ethical, and inclusive leadership, as well as management styles such as production-oriented, people-oriented, coaching, visionary, affiliative, pacesetting, transactional, transformational, agile, and inclusive management. It emphasises key skills for effective leadership and management, such as communication, decision-making, strategic thinking, delegation, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and technical expertise. The discussion highlights that leadership is primarily focused on vision, influence, motivation, and change, while management emphasises structure, stability, coordination, and operational efficiency. The paper concludes that successful educational leaders need to combine both leadership and management skills to foster institutional growth, employee engagement, innovation, and long-term organisational success.
Keywords: Educational Management, Leadership, Leadership Styles, Management, Organisational effectiveness, management styles
Principals’ Leadership Styles as Determinants of Business Studies Teachers’ Job Performance In Junior Secondary Schools in Edo State, Nigeria (Published)
The study focused on principals’ leadership styles as determinants of business studies teachers’ job performance in Junior Secondary Schools in Egor Local Government Area (L.G.A.) of Edo State. Four research questions were raised and answered. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 46 business studies teachers (34 females and 12 males) from thirteen junior secondary schools in Egor L.G.A. All the population was used as sample for the study since the population was manageable. A 21-item structured questionnaire was used to collect data. A 4 point rating scale of Very High Extent (VHE), High Extent (HE), Low Extent (LE) and Very Low Extent (VLE) with assigned values of 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively were adopted. The instrument was subjected to face validity by three experts. A reliability coefficient of 0.76 was obtained using Cronbach alpha statistics. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation. The study revealed that business studies teachers’ job performance in Egor L.G.A. is low. It was recommended among others, that principals should employ and vary diverse leadership styles to suit different situations, as the needs arise, use appropriate leadership styles to influence the government for provision of instructional facilities/materials for the teaching of Business studies subjects which is practically oriented instead of teaching it theoretically; that business studies teachers should be given opportunity to undergo in-service training to enable them acquire new knowledge and skills for effective performance of their jobs, among others.
Keywords: Determinants, Job, Leadership Styles, Performance
Assessing the Leadership Styles of Male and Female Academics in Leadership Positions: Does Gender Matter (Published)
This study assessed the leadership styles of male and female heads of departments in a Nigerian State university. This was done to ascertain whether differences exist in the way both sexes lead and whether the way women lead account for their under representation in leadership positions. Data from both primary and secondary sources were utilized for this study. The primary data was derived through the administration of the Multifactor leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) on 90 randomly selected academic staff in subordinate positions from 7 purposively selected faculties in Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria. The retrieved data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics in the form of percentages, means, Cronbach alpha and Mann Whitney U test. It was found that both the male and female heads of departments utilized more of the transformational (males x̅=4.35; females x̅=4.50), democratic (males x̅=4.15; females x̅=4.13), transactional (males x̅=3.76; females x̅=3.59) and laissez-fair (males x̅=3.29; females x̅=3.06) leadership styles, as evident in their high mean scores. There was no significant difference (P>0.)5) in the leadership styles of both sexes. Women were found to lead in ways that are effective and the styles they adopted did not account for their under representation. The study concluded that the university should develop strategies for increasing the number of women in leadership positions since they were found to lead in ways that are effective; and investigate the factors that account for their under representation.
Keywords: Leadership Positions, Leadership Styles, Male And Female Academics, University