Principal Leadership, Work Motivation, and Professional Competence as Predictors of Primary School Teachers’ Performance in Semarang

Purpose: To examine the individual and joint associations of principal leadership, work motivation, and professional competence with teacher performance in public primary schools in the Dwarawati School Cluster, Banyumanik District, Semarang City. Research Method: A quantitative cross-sectional explanatory survey included all 36 classroom teachers from six public primary schools through census sampling. Data were collected using 51 questionnaire items on a five-point Likert scale and analyzed using multiple linear regression. Instrument assessment employed corrected item–total correlations and Cronbach’s alpha. Results and Discussion: All constructs exhibited high internal consistency (α = 0.908–0.946). The regression model was significant, F(3, 32) = 15.877, p < 0.001, explaining 59.8% of the variance in teacher performance. Principal leadership (β = 0.503, p < 0.001), work motivation (β = 0.385, p = 0.002), and professional competence (β = 0.356, p = 0.005) showed positive, significant associations. Principal leadership demonstrated the strongest association. Implications: Educational human resource management should integrate leadership development, motivational support, and continuing professional development. Future longitudinal studies should examine temporal relationships across broader school contexts. Originality: The study integrates leadership, motivation, and competence within the Ability–Motivation–Opportunity framework to provide contextual evidence from a public primary school cluster.