Abstract:
Leadership style is an important aspect in
students’ academic performance in schools.
Transformational leadership style is associated with the
students’ academic achievement in KCSE. The study
sought to establish the relationship between idealized
influence of principals’ transformational leadership style
and students’ academic performance in KCSE in Bomet
County in Kenya. The descriptive survey design was used
for this study whose target population comprised of 130
secondary schools and five Quality Assurance and
Standards Officers in Bomet County. Stratified random
sampling procedure was adopted to sample out schools as
boys’, girls’ and mixed schools; then Slovin’s formula was
used to obtain a total of 108 schools. While purposive
sampling procedure was applied to choose one Director of
Studies from each 108 schools selected and five Quality
Assurance and Standards Officers from the five
sub-counties in Bomet County. A total sample of 118
respondents from 108 secondary schools and the five
sub-counties participated in the study. When collecting the
data, instruments used were Director of Studies’
questionnaires, Quality Assurance and Standards Officers’
interview guides, school and Bomet County Director of
Education KCSE records. Chi-square test was adopted to
establish the relationship between principals’ idealized
influence and academic performance and the results
showed that principals’ idealized influence had a strong
significant relationship with students’ academic
performance in KCSE. Thus, idealized influence
characteristics are most effective in promoting students’
academic achievement. The study recommends that the
idealized influence should be adopted and displayed by
principals in order to improve academic performance in
KCSE examinations.
