Effects of Principals’ Leadership Styles on Students’ Discipline in Public Secondary Schools in Nyeri Central Sub-County, Kenya

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect the principals’ leadership style had on students discipline in secondary schools in Nyeri central sub-county. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The target population was 16 school principals, 304 teachers and 1530 form three students from the public secondary schools in the sub-county. A simple stratified sampling technique was used to sample 10 schools out of the total 16 schools. All principals of 10 schools selected using purposive sampling were interviewed. A sample of 153 students was selected using a simple random technique from the selected schools and also 52 teachers. The researcher collected data from the principals using interview method while those from teachers and students were collected using questionnaires. A pilot study was carried out prior to main study in order to test the reliability and validity of the instruments. The crucial study findings were that discipline issues existed in schools and the most common were noise making, assignment incompletion and drug abuse. Also key in the findings was that most principals in the sub-county employed autocratic leadership style and totally disregarded other forms of leadership styles like democratic and transformational. The drawn conclusion was that autocratic leadership style had a negative effect on students’ discipline management and could therefore be attributed to many discipline cases in schools. The study recommendations were that over reliance of the autocratic leadership style by principals in the sub-county should be avoided, guidance and counseling department should be strengthened and be actively involved in handling discipline issues in schools.