Best Practices for Maintaining the Good Relationship Between Principals and Academic Staff

Abstract

 There have been periodic changes to the conventional responsibilities of principals in educational institute’s leadership. An assessment of the literature is conducted to emphasize that the four main practice areas that need to be looked into to improve the bond between the principal and academic staff are “instructional, administrative, environmental, and emotional.”Under the appropriate supervision of twelve educational specialists who hold doctorates, the literature study functioned as the basis for formulating the discussion points for the focus group. Participants in focus group discussions include department heads, principals, and senior lecturers. Multiple sampling techniques were used in this qualitative investigation, with a sample size of 80 (i.e., 8 Principals, 18 HOD, 12 Sr. Lecturers, and 44 Lecturers). A convenient selection of eight out of fifteen institutes was made, and faculty members from every discipline were picked randomly. Focus group discussions served as the method of data collection. NVivo 14 is the software used to analyze the qualitative data. The responses from each participant were noted and recorded into an M.S. Word document for further analysis work. The discussion files were imported into NVivo version 14, and thematic interpretations were performed. NVivo 14 created a word cloud, bar charts, and hierarchy charts to ascertain which practice is more prominent. The study concludes that improving relationships between academic staff and principals requires more environmental and emotional practices than administrative or instructional ones. The academic faculty has emphasized dynamic practices more, while the principal has focused more on organizational practices.