An Empirical Comparative Examination of School Leadership Behaviors

This cross-sectional quantitative research examined the extent to which a model relating leadership behaviors and teacher commitment previously investigated in the United States of America applies in Malawi, a culture differing from the USA on several dimensions. Freeman (2014) found that transactional leadership behavior of school principals in the USA has a positive and significant relationship with teacher commitment to students. In addition, he found that collective efficacy fully mediated the relationship between transactional leadership behavior of school principals and teacher commitment to student¿s academic achievement and social well-being. No previous study had examined the external validity of these findings. Utilizing a sample of 184 teachers from public primary and secondary schools in Malawi, results of this study did not support these findings. In fact, this research found the following: (a) intellectual stimulation behavior of school principals was positively and significantly related to teachers¿ commitment to both students¿ academic achievement and students¿ social well-being; (b) transactional leadership did not have any effects on teacher's commitment.