Eureka! Institutional Repository

The term of self- leadership refers to a process of behavioral and cognitive self-evaluation and self-influence with the aim of which people achieve to enhance individual performance. The present study examined the issue of teacher’ self-leadership and the perceived by teachers leadership style of the school principal (democratic, authoritarian, laissez faire), the degree of teachers’ satisfaction by the practicing style. The study also investigated the relationship between the perceived leadership style with teachers’ self-leadership and satisfaction based on teachers’ demographics. In addition, the challenges faced by school principals were studied. The participants were 289 teachers and 26 head teachers from Elmina’s Junior high schools, in Ghana's Central District. Data were collected using two survey instruments: The questionnaire made by Houghton, Dawley & DiLiello (2012), aka "the Abbreviated Self-Leadership Questionnaire (ASLQ)", which was used to measure self-leadership, and the questionnaire which was developed by the University of Tamale ( University for Development Studies - Faculty of Education) of Ghana, for the needs of similar research, which was used to measure leadership style and school challenges. Findings from the study revealed that in the field of self-leadership, teachers operate at a level above average and have a positive attitude towards themselves. The perceived by teachers leadership style is the laissez faire, but it provides moderate satisfaction (M = 1.56) in most of its dimensions, while there seems to be a positive correlation between satisfaction by the leadership style and the self-leadership of teachers. At the same level is the satisfaction that teachers receive from the performance of the pedagogical and administrative duties of the principal. Finally, the results showed that teachers and principals judge differently about the challenges faced by the school management.