The Influence of Principals’ Strategic Leadership on Students’ Outcome

Abstract

The principal strategic leadership strongly influences school performance, especially on students’ achievement in academic, co-curriculum and personal. Various training and leadership courses are held for the principals to ensure that this group can translate it into strategically planned efforts thus producing excellent schools. In the Malaysian education context, there are three (3) elements of students’ outcome, namely academic, co-curriculum and personality, which depend on a good and strategic principal leadership. The study was conducted to examine the level of principals’ strategic leadership and students’ outcome and the relationship between the two. The study was conducted in 85 secondary schools in one of the states in Malaysia, involving 374 respondents to answer the questionnaire based on Davies and Davies (2004) Strategic Leadership theory and the 2nd Wave of Malaysian Education Quality Standard (SKPMg2). The findings showed that the level of Strategic Leadership among principals was very high (mean = 4.32, S.D. = 0.421), whereas Students’ Outcome also very high (mean = 4.53, S.D. = 0.373). In addition, the findings of this study indicated that there was a significant relationship between the principals’ strategic leadership and the students’ outcome. This shows that the principals’ strategic leadership practice could influence students’ outcome in the secondary school. Keyword: Principals’ Leadership, Principals’ Strategic Leadership, Students’ Outcome, Students’ Academic Achievement Introduction Principal Strategic Leadership has become an important issue that often debated among scholars. Various studies have been carried out in every corner of the globe with various theories underlying the strategic leadership pattern. A similar study was conducted to look at the relationship between the principal's strategic leadership and the students’ outcome. Fred R. David (2001) states that in order to establish a good school leadership, the leader must understand the concepts, components and activities of strategic leadership. The main concepts of strategic leadership are (i) strategic formulation, (ii) strategic implementation and (iii) strategic evaluation. Strategic formulation is translated through strategic missions, visions, objectives and strategies, as a result of external and internal scanning (environmental scanning). As for the strategic implementation component, it is International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 2, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 404 demonstrated through the implementation of programs, provisions and procedures that will help schools to act more strategically. In Malaysian context, the studies of Zuraida (2013); Masrizal (2013) and Fazleen and Siti (2018) show that there are many factors that influence the principal strategic leadership and students’ outcome. The principal’s individual strengths and their strategic planning are dominant factors. Studies related to the strategic leadership of principals toward students’ outcome are ongoing (Davies & Davies, 2011). It is an effort to ensure that the principals' leadership is on the right track to produce a successful students’ outcome. Strategic principals should know how to develop a strategic plan for their school and practice a systematic planning, administration and management. Over the past 20 years, countries around the world have generally focused on the role of leaders (Boal, Kimberly, 2000). Various training such as leadership and competencies training are focused on improving leadership performances for the head of the organization (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010, 2013). The Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE) has undertaken various efforts to ensure that every school leader is at a high level of readiness to administer the school. All these efforts are to achieve the aim of the Malaysian Education Development Plan (PPPM 20132025) which is to attain higher quality of education through the 11 shifts. The quality of students’ academic achievement is the main agenda of education reform as embodied in the 2013-2025 PPPM. The Ministry expects all parties to work together especially the educators towards achieving the goals and aspirations of attaining a high-quality education system in Malaysia (KPM, 2013). Through PPPM 2013 2025, MOE will ensure that every school has a high-quality leader whether it is the principal or headmaster and that he or she will be assisted by the middle leadership regardless of the location and level of school performance. The school's leadership team aims to provide the best leadership possible to improve the overall school performance. A new career package for school leadership by reinforcing the selection, training and rewarding of principals or teachers has been introduced by the ministry to achieve these goals. Some of the steps that the ministry has taken are as follows: ● refining and clarifying selection criteria. ● creating a group of potential school leaders for the future. ● improvement of preparation and continuous professional development; and ● Performance-based leadership approach (PPPM 2013 – 2025) The Ministry of Education of Malaysia (MOE) intends to improve the quality of student outcome in line with the aspirations of the National Education Philosophy (NEP). The Ministry of Education's approach on education focuses on the holistic development of students by stressing on emphasizing intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical development along with building a strong national identity (PPPM, 2013-2025). The Malaysian Education Development Plan makes the National Philosophy of Education as the foundation for the formation of the Student Aspiration that will lead to the Students’ Outcome. The Student Aspiration Attributes are a. Knowledge, b. Thinking Skills, c. Leading Skills, d. Bilingual skills, e. Ethical and Spiritual, and f. National Identity (Malaysian Blueprint 2013-2025) International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 2, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 405 MOE (2018) reports that the total number of schools that meet the High Performing School and Cluster of Excellence School standards are only 553 schools compared to the total number of schools that are 10,152. It represents only 5.4% of the students' outcome levels, particularly the students’ academic achievement. This situation has raised the question of what factors that resulted the situation? Was it the weak leadership factors or the students' failure to master learning skills? According to Bustaman (2015), the strategic leadership issues that have been the topic of debate and often discussed in Malaysian education are the issues of lack of expertise, failure to achieve vision and mission, non-strategic development, as well as unserious analysis of strength and weaknesses. This has led to the school's failure to achieve its goals and has resulted in the unachievable return of investment (ROI) that have been spent on various failed leadership training programs. The decline in student morale is one of the reasons that the students’ outcome in personal development is unfulfilled and the holistic student outcome is not achieved as intended by the Ministry of Education Malaysia (Khuzaimah, 2018). The lack of studies on strategic leadership based on the eleven shifts of PPPM 20132025 makes it important to be done by the educational researchers (Kamaruzzaman Moidunny, 2012). Similarly, Ahmad Masrizal (2013) states that researchers in Malaysia need to delve deeper into the factors that influence strategic leadership practice, to what extent the practices suggested by strategic leadership theory are practiced, and to what extent these practices lead to the strategic planning of educational development for the 21st century. He also said that research on the principal strategic leadership should be done due to the lack of research in this area especially at the local level. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the level of strategic leadership practice of principals, the level of students’ outcome and to examine the relationship and contribution between these two. The research questions for this study are as follows: i. To determine the levels of principal strategic leadership and students’ outcome. ii. To identify the relationship between the principals’ strategic leadership and students’ outcome. iii. To examine the influence of principals’ strategic leadership on students’ outcome. Literature Review Strategic Leadership Davies and Davies (2004, 2006, 2009, 2011) explained that in order to enhance strategic leadership in schools, two (2) matters that can be related and focused on to, are the organizational (capacity) dimensions and individual (characteristic) dimensions. These matters were explained clearly in the journal on strategic leadership, the Strategic Leadership. In their journals, they have promoted the strategic leadership model that they developed which are best applied in non-profit organizations such as schools. In the strategic leadership model, there are nine (9) elements that are subdivided into components of organizational capacity and individual characteristics (Figure 1). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 2, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 406 Figure 1: Davies and Davies Strategic Leadership Model Source: Davies & Davies (2004) Based on Figure 1, the two (2) variables involved in this study are the independent variables: Organizational and Individual Dimensions and the dependent variables that represent students’ outcome performance. Based on the literature review, the researcher created the framework to illustrate the overall concept of the research. For the independent variable, the concept of strategic leadership involves 9 elements divided into two dimensions namely Organizational Dimensions t