Leadership style of religious school headmasters and its relationship to academic achievement in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

This research was conducted at 15 religious schools in Tutong District. The objectives of this research are to identify leadearship style and its relationship to academic achievement. The "Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire" (LBDQ) formed by Halpin (1966) was used. Meanwhile Academic achievement was measured using the "School Certificate Examination Results, Religious Primary School" (SSSRU) from 2008-2011. A total of 191 teachers and 15 headmasters from religious school in Tutong District were randomly chosen. Pearson correlation was used to analyse the data. To support data obtained from questionnaire given 10 teachers were interviewed. The results showed that most of the school leaders adopt a democratic style of leadership. There was a significant correlation between the structure of task-oriented leadership style and students' performance in the examinations. Correlation analysis also showed that headmasters practice task- oriented structure and consideration-oriented structure in relation to their work responsiblities. Furthermore, findings also showed that majority of the headmasters are more likely to practice consideration-oriented leadership style compared to structure-oriented leadership style.