Distributed Leadership and Secondary School Goal Achievement: Empirical Insights from Nigeria

In school settings, leadership plays a crucial role in predicting goal achievement. Based on the transformational model, this study examined how principals' distributed leadership (DL) contributed to secondary school goal achievement (SSGA) based on teachers' perceptions. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, the study utilised a non-experimental research design to predict the contribution of DL and its components to SSGA. In the study area, 505 respondents were selected by a systematic random sampling technique. Fornell Larckers' approach was used to determine the DV in this study. In addition, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient was applied to assess the instrument's internal consistency for each construct above 0.8. Furthermore, composite reliability was performed, and it was indicated that the instrument is reliable because its value is above 0.8 against the benchmark of 0.7. Based on the model, it is indicated that all the components of DL had a positive contribution to the SSGA except in the areas of modelling and inspiring a shared vision. Also, all the DL factors in the model contributed 38.7% to the total variance observed in SSGA. It thus indicates that adopting DL will promote the attainment of secondary school goals. Therefore, principals should be empowered with DL in their leadership development to attain sustainable secondary school goals. Also, each DL component should be considered when developing a curriculum for the principalship development programme to enable the participants to acquire holistic knowledge and capacity to attain SSGA.