Augustine Edwin Berewa¹, Saidu Challay², Samuel Joseph Bebeley³, Prince Tongor Mabey^3,, Joseph James Mbavai¹

This study investigated the influence of school leadership styles on pupils' academic performance at the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) from 2020 to 2024 in Kono District, Sierra Leone, a district that recorded the lowest WASSCE performance nationally, with only 4.51% of candidates meeting university entry requirements against a national average of 13.61%. Two research objectives guided the study: to identify the most prevalent leadership styles among school principals; and to examine the extent to which those leadership styles influence pupils' academic performance. A concurrent triangulation mixed-methods design was employed, with structured questionnaires administered to 17 principals and 151 pin coded teachers and semi-structured interviews conducted with 17 Community Teachers' Association (CTA) chairpersons, yielding a total sample of N = 185 across 17 purposively selected senior secondary schools. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and chi-square, while qualitative data were thematically analyzed. The findings reveal that the democratic leadership style is the most prevalent, with 58.8% of principals self-reporting it as their dominant approach, while 35.3% reported a transformational style; no principal endorsed an autocratic or laissez-faire style. Teachers similarly identified the democratic style as most effective (55.6%). Although perceptions of leadership's influence were broadly positive with both principals and teachers endorsing instructional and democratic leadership as facilitators of academic performance inferential analysis found no statistically significant association between preferred leadership style and school performance ratings: ANOVA yielded F (3, 147) = 1.37, p = 0.255, and chi-square returned χ² (6, N = 151) = 4.04, p = 0.671 (Cramer's V = 0.116). The study concludes that while leadership style is a perceived and theoretically plausible contributor to academic performance, its measured association with WASSCE outcomes is weak when examined in isolation, owing to the mediating and moderating roles of poverty, teacher motivation, resource scarcity, parental engagement, and examination integrity. The study recommends targeted professional development for school principals, strengthening of instructional supervision, and a whole-system reform approach addressing the structural determinants of academic underperformance in Kono District.

School Leadership Styles, Academic Performance, WASSCE, Instructional Leadership, Democratic Leadership, Kono District, Sierra Leone