Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of principals’ leadership styles on students’ discipline in government secondary schools of Ambo Town Administration. The objectives were to establish the influence of Transformational leadership, Transactional leadership, and Laissez faire leadership on students’ discipline in government secondary schools of Ambo Town Administration. The research applied correlation research design employing random sampling technique. The study sampled 77 Teachers and 27 School leaders. Questionnaires were used for data collection and Reliability was determined through using Pearson’s correlation coefficient methods. Data was analyzed using correlation statistics supported by SPSS version 26 and presented in tables, frequency, means and standard deviation. The findings showed the existence of a positive relationship between the principal’s leadership and students’ discipline. The study established that transformational leadership accounted for the mean score of 2.56 of variation on students’ discipline, transactional leadership accounted for the mean score of 2.53 of variation in students discipline and Laissez faire leadership accounted for the mean score of 2.46 of variation on student’s discipline. These findings also exposed that the overall of the transformational leadership used in the correlation coefficient analysis statically (r=0.658, and the p-value is less than alpha 0.000 i.e. (p<0.01) high positive and a significant relationship between transformational leadership practice of principals factors and students discipline. The transactional leadership used in the correlation coefficient analysis statically(r=0.637), the Laissez faire leadership used in the correlation coefficient analysis statically (r=-0.347) and the p-value was greater than the alpha 0.000 i.e. (p>0.02) was strongly negative and no significant correlation between Laissez faire leadership and students discipline in government secondary schools of Ambo Town Administration. The researcher recommends that: Education sectors or office administration should be organizing workshops to provide in-service training on head teachers on the appropriate leadership style to employ to curb indiscipline. The researcher suggests a further study to be done on: examine the influence of principal leadership styles on the students’ discipline
