Leadership competencies of school principals: The case of urban and rural private schools in Pakistan

Private schools have been growing in urban and rural areas to improve the quality of education in Pakistan and have become the second largest employer after textile industry. With a little government budget on education, there is a lack of monitoring on the minimum standard of education in Pakistan. Therefore the quality of education depends primarily on the way schools are managed. The objective of this study is to explore the leadership competencies of private school principals in Pakistan urban and rural areas. Content analysis was utilized to analyze written responses from 26 private schools. This study reveals that in urban and rural areas private school principals are perceived to have strong personal characters but lack the competencies to drive results. The main finding of this study is that leadership competencies of personal characters and driving results are perceived as two independent aspects, instead of complimenting to one another. This is one of the reasons why many private schools fail to retain students to complete a full cycle of basic education.