Relationship between Principals’ Transformational Leadership Styles and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Secondary Schools in Gatundu North Sub County Kiambu County, Kenya

This research project explored the link between transformational style of leadership adopted by principals in secondary schools in Gatundu North Sub-County and the teachers’ job satisfaction. The principal leadership style was viewed as behaviour in a working process, which influences all school relevant performances. Teachers’ job satisfaction refers to the affective attitude of teachers towards their role, derived from the evaluation of characteristics of the job itself. The aim of this research was to define relationship between school principal transformational leadership style and teachers’ job satisfaction. The study sought to establish whether principals’ transformational styles stimulate teacher job satisfaction. The study was guided by the Herzberg’s two-factor motivator theory, to test the levels of job satisfaction among teachers under transformational leadership. The dependent variable for the study was teachers’ job satisfaction while the independent variable was principals’ transformational leadership style. The study used correlation design to collect data from the study population of 34 principals and 590 teachers from all the 34 secondary schools within the region. The principals were selected using stratified random sampling while teachers were selected through purposive random sampling. The sample size comprised of 10 principals and 130 teachers. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was used to collect information from the samples. The data collected was scored and coded for statistical analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics was used. Descriptive statistics was analyzed using frequencies, means and percentages and presented in tables and figures. The hypothesis was tested at α = 0.05 using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The results provided evidence that there was a significant relationship between principals’ transformational leadership style and teachers’ job satisfaction. A major recommendation of the study was that the board of institutions should integrate programmes such as seminars, workshops in order to sharpen the leadership skills of their principals. This will assist the principals adopt the leadership styles that would enhance the satisfaction of teachers on their job.