The role of principals leadership styles and emotional intelligence on the work motivation and job performance of teachers in Addis Ababa Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was aimed at investigating the role of principals leadership styles and their emotional intelligence on the work motivation and job performance of teachers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study, thus, first examined the relationship of work motivation and job performance of the teachers in relation to the perceived leadership styles and emotional intelligence of principals. Second, it has assessed the mean differences and the interaction effects of the principals leadership styles and emotional intelligence on the work motivation and job performance of the teachers. Finally, the study has investigated whether principals leadership styles and emotional intelligence variables had predicted significantly the work motivation and job performance of teachers. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the 316 teacher participants from the eight sub-cities of Addis Ababa. The main data gathering instruments used in this study was the path goal leadership questionnaire, emotional competence inventory, multidimensional work motivation scale and job performance appraisal scale. Major findings of the study have revealed that the work motivation and job performance of the teachers were significantly correlated with the perceived participative leadership style, achievement-oriented leadership style and emotional intelligence of principals. Moreover, the emotional intelligence of the principals was found to be the best predictor of the teachers work motivation whereas the achievement-oriented leadership style of the principals was identified as the best predictor of the job performance of the teachers. Furthermore, the interaction effects of all the four path goal leadership styles vis-a-vis the emotional intelligence of the principals have shown differential effects on the work motivation and job performance of teachers. To conclude,