Principals' leadership style and tutor job satisfaction: Insights from tutors in public colleges of education in Ghana

This study explored how principals’ leadership styles influenced tutor job satisfaction in public Colleges of Education (CoEs) in Ghana. Anchored by the constructivist paradigm, this study adopted a phenomenological research design with a qualitative research approach. Eligible participants for this study included all full-time principals and tutors of the forty-six colleges who had been at their present college for at least three years. Purposive and convenient sampling techniques were utilised to obtain forty participants involving fifteen principals and twenty-five tutors from all the five zones as organised by the National Conference of Principals of Public CoEs in Ghana. This study utilised a semi-structured interview guide in collecting data. Analysing the data thematically revealed that participants (both tutors principals) believed the principals mostly used transformational leadership styles and that tutors were perceived to be satisfied with their job. Again, both tutors and principals expressed a strong liking for transformational leadership as highly influencing tutor job satisfaction. Largely, tutors and principals suggested laissez-faire leadership style as unfavourable to tutor job satisfaction. Thus, effective transformational leadership is pivotal in enhancing tutor job satisfaction in public CoEs in Ghana. Accordingly, principals in public CoEs in Ghana, among others, should focus on strengthening transformational leadership practices in their administrative and managerial roles, and regularly identify and reinforce the factors of tutor job satisfaction.
Keywords: leadership styles, transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, tutor, job satisfaction