Principal Leadership Style and Conflict Management in Public Secondary School in Ona-Ara Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria.

ABSTRACT The purpose of the study was to investigate the principal leadership style and conflict management in public secondary school in Ona Ara Local Government Area in Oyo state. To achieve the objective of the study, four null hypotheses were formulated to direct the study. Relevant literature was reviewed on the hypothesis directing the study. Survey research design was adopted for the study, a total sample of thirteen (13) respondents was selected from a population of 13 teachers. The selection was done through the simple random sampling technique. As a veritable tool for data collection, 4 questionnaires influence of supportive leadership style on conflict management, influence of participatory leadership style on conflict management, influence of transactional leadership style on conflict management and influence of transformational leadership style on conflict management. To test the hypotheses and to ascertain whether to reject or retain them, Pearson product moment correlation analysis was considered the most appropriate statistical technique employed to test the formulated hypotheses. All hypotheses were subjected to testing at 0.05 level of significance with critical initial values and degrees of freedom. The result of the analysis indicated that there is no significant difference between male and female principals in leadership style and conflict management in public secondary school in Ona Ara Local Government Area of oyo state, Nigeria. Based on this, it was recommended that secondary school principals should find way to support their subordinates who are in need, principal should have good interactions with staff to enable them identify and fix differences timely, where situation demands, principal should apply authority to resolve school conflict promptly and principal should be role models to those they lead.