The Language of Leadership: An Investigation of School Heads' Illocutionary Acts in an SPTA Meeting

Abstract Leadership plays a vital role in any organization but without communicative pedagogies, it may lead to ineffective leadership. This study aimed to investigate the school heads’ illocutionary acts in the context of SPTA meetings in North District, Tanjay City Division, the school year 2024-2025. Through purposive sampling, eight school heads were qualified to participate in the study based on the qualifications set by the researcher. Moreover, a descriptive qualitative method was utilized as an appropriate method for the scope and the nature of the study. A consented audio recording of the participants’ verbatims during the first quarter SPTA meetings was utilized and analyzed through the five categories of illocutionary acts introduced by Searle in 1976. To emphasize the descriptive nature of the analysis, frequency and percentage distribution were utilized. Based on the findings, school heads’ utterances pertained to all categories of illocutionary acts but among the five, it was evident that representatives obtained the highest percentage as demonstrated by 40.97%. This emphasized the importance of sharing information and involving stakeholders for effective learning outcomes. Thus, all the categories evident in the study were found to have a vital role in the school heads’ effective language of leadership. Thus, the findings suggest that school heads should continue to use communicative styles and strategies to promote awareness and cooperation in the landscape of the school community. Keywords: Descriptive qualitative research; utterances, illocutionary acts