Transformational Leadership of Head Teachers and Academic Optimism: Perspectives of Teachers in Secondary Schools

The ideal leadership behaviour of head teachers has become extremely important for the overall progress of schools. This research aimed to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership behaviour of head teachers and academic optimism in secondary schools. The population of this research comprised of all secondary school teachers: male (65331) and female (59885) in Punjab province. The sample of 900 teachers was selected through multistage random sampling technique based on the district performance rankings from 2017-18, presented by Punjab Education Sector Reform Program (PESRP), however a total of 872 teachers responded. The researcher developed the instrument (TLQ) based on transformational leadership of head teachers and adapted an instrument (SAOS) for academic optimism. Validity of both research instruments was ensured by expert opinions and reliability of both instruments was checked through Alpha value 0.944 and 0.823 respectively. The study inferred a significant and strong positive correlation between transformational leadership of head teachers and academic optimism in schools. This study can provide guidelines for the ideal leadership model at the school level in order to improve the performance of teachers and students.