The Effect of Transformational Leadership on School Culture in Male' Primary Schools Maldives

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of transformational leadership on school culture. The educational sector of Maldives has been experiencing increasing change. Calls for school reform and restructuring in past few years have emphasized the importance of new, more collaborative forms of school management and leadership. The public expectation quality teaching school accountability and divergent input became more complex and demanding. A total sample of 217 teachers was selected from five primary schools. A quantitative survey design using questionnaire was conducted in 2008 to assess the perception of teachers on their principals' leadership behavior in Male', Maldives. The method of analysis used to mean score, standard deviation, Pearson correlation and multiple regression Stepwise. The findings revealed that the mean score of transformational leadership behavior of Male' primary school principals was average ( mean = 2.90; SD = .66) but the level of school culture was quite high ( mean = 3.09; SD = .47). In addition the result showed that there is strong, positive correlation relationship between the overall transformational leadership and school culture ( r = .73, p<.01). All the six transformational leadership dimensions had moderate correlation relationship with school culture except the 'providing individualized support' dimension which had strong and positive relationship ( r = .71, p<.01). Finally, findings showed that there are three significance predictors contributed 55.9 percent of the total variance of school culture. The three predictors are providing individualized support dimension, holding high performance expectations dimension and identifying and articulating vision dimension. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 2nd World Conference on Psychology, Counselling and Guidance.