The Impact of the Principals’ Idealized Influence and Inspirational Motivation on Students’ Academic Performance in the Sidama Region of Ethiopia

The study investigated the principals' idealized influence and inspirational motivation practices of transformational leadership and their effects on student academic achievement. A convergent parallel mixed research design was used in the study. The independent variable in this study was the idealized influence (IF) and inspirational motivation (IM) behaviors of transformational leadership, whereas the dependent variable was the students' academic performance. The survey, which comprised 362 teachers and 91 principals from 24 public secondary schools, used an appropriate sampling approach. Twenty teachers and ten principals took part in the qualitative phase. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the gathered data. The study's findings demonstrated that principals engage in idealized influence and inspirational motivation activities of transformational leadership to varying degrees. Additionally, the study showed the significant effect of the principal's idealized influence and inspirational motivational actions on students' academic progress. The principal perceived a positive correlation between idealized influence and student academic performance (r =.706, p<.01)