This study investigated the influence of principals’ management styles on teachers’ job performance in private secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. Four research questions were proposed to carefully guide the study. The descriptive survey was the research designed adopted for this study and a sample of five hundred and fifty-six (556) educators were selected from a population of five thousand, five hundred and sixty (5560) educators. Out of the population, 5421 were teachers and 139 were school principals. Out of the 556 sample size, 542 were teachers while 14 were school principals.
Desktop review was conducted to collect data from various secondary sources. This included reports and unpublished projects which had close ended questionnaires based on the 4 point Likert scale which was used to retrieve information on the influence of principals’ management styles on teachers’ job performance in private secondary schools. More data were collected from schools’ reports from schools in Amac and Gwagwalada area councils. More data was also obtained from the existing working documents, manuals, procedures, reports and statistical data from schools.
The gathered data were analyzed using frequency tables, percentages and mean. The findings of this study indicated that the management style commonly employed by school principals in private secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria is the democratic management style. The study equally found that the communication styles adopted by school principals influence teachers’ job performance in private secondary schools in the FCT to a high extent. On the other hand, the study revealed that the level of supervision in private secondary schools in the FCT was high. It was also found that teachers were well involved in decision-making processes. In view of the above, some recommendations were made. School principals should be encouraged to continue with democratic management style; principals should endeavour to improve on their communication style to a very high extent for optimal productivity of teachers; the level of supervision of teachers should attain a very high level for teachers’ effectiveness and efficiency in their duty. Finally, principals should continue to involve teachers in decision making process in order to enhance commitment of teachers for effective management of the school.