This research is a qualitative study of two private secondary schools in Nigeria. Data was collected from eight (8) participants through in-depth interview (IDI). Observation was employed to triangulate and validate the leadership style claims of both principals and teachers as few researches have dwelled on such. Findings revealed that a situated involvement of teachers in responsibilities motivate them to do their most excellence to achieve result through initiating change in schools' organizations as well as others referred to as transformational leadership.
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School A in Kano state and School B in Kaduna state in Nigeria were used for this study based on their high-performance level. They have a track record of nurturing academic excellence and value in their students. These two schools have exhibited trend of producing high achieving students who are also very disciplined, and well-behaved. They have recorded oversubscription in the entrance class of Junior Secondary School 1 for over 10 years. The researchers have cause to assume that the success of these two schools was achieved due to the kind of leadership approach employed by the school principals to lead the schools. The principals exhibit attributes and characteristics of transformational leadership of intellectual stimulation (IS) idealized influence (II), individual consideration (IC) as well as inspirational motivation (IM). This study describes the context and methodology to help others understand how the findings of this study could be applicable to other similar circumstances. Transferability is therefore possible where it is up to the consumer of the research findings to speculate how the results can be useful (Merriam, 1995). Authors like (Eval and Roth, 2011) investigated to find out the bond between transformational leadership and motivation, and they established that leadership style was a significant factor in motivating teachers.
Teachers reported that principals who had the utmost influence were open, participatory, and effective (Blase & Blase, 1999a, 1999b, 2000; Blase & Kirby, 1992; Hoy & Smith, 2007). Better student learning and more committed teachers were associated with school principals demonstrating transformational leadership. Principals work to manage thoughts and feelings of staff while encouraging collaborative culture in addition to interactions among employees. Such leadership tends to facilitate an overall collective and effective school design (Chirichello, 1999). Leadership approach has over time been demonstrated by several scholars like (Bass and Avolio, 2003) as having encouraging association amid transformational leadership and the organizations' performance levels.
Past scholars argued that about twenty years of leadership research have confirmed that leaders possessing some ideals of leadership in terms of transformational style are likely to produce higher level of employees' commitment and contentment (Walumbwa, Lawler, Avolio, Wang, & Shi, 2005). This present study corroborates this notion and provides understanding of how this leadership style works in school environment. Given that,the researchers have cause to assume that the success of these two schools was achieved due to the kind of leadership approach employed by the school principals to lead the schools. While, exhibiting attributes and characteristics of transformational leadership of intellectual stimulation (IS) idealized influence (II), individual consideration (IC) as well as inspirational motivation (IM). Bearing this in mind, this study attempts an illustration of how principals of two identified private secondary schools in Kaduna and Kano states in Northern Nigeria achieved school success, teacher followership, student high academic performance through transformational leadership style of the principals, so that others could adopt the same to achieve success.