The Impact of Leader – Member Exchange (LMX) Theory on the Performance of Teachers at Secondary School Level

Abstract

High quality exchanges indicate that subordinates have better relationships with their leaders which encourage better employee outcomes. This study examines the impact of leader – member exchange (LMX) theory on teachers’ performance at secondary school level. The main objectives of the study were to identify teachers with high and low LMX, investigate the impact of leader – member exchange (LMX) on teachers’ performance at secondary school level and to identify the strongest predictor of teachers’ performance. The retrospective type of causal comparative design was used for the study. The population of the study was all the heads and teachers of Government Girls Secondary Schools of District Lahore and Sahiwal. The sample comprised of 16 headmistresses and 32 teachers of Government Girls Secondary Schools of both the districts. The instruments used for data collection were all adopted and they were LMX- 7 developed by Graen and Uhl-Bien in 1995and  teachers’ job performance self-rating questionnaire (TJPSQ)by Amin, et al., in 2013 The reliability of LMX -7 is 0.743 and TJPSQ is 0.826. Observation was also carried out and scores were recorded by using check list. For finding the strongest predictor of dependent variable, Multiple linear regression was applied. In first phase, data were collected from heads for overall 160 teachers by using LMX-7. After selecting one teacher from each In-group and Out- group, in phase II data were collected from all the heads and teachers by using TJPSQ.  The study revealed that there is significant difference in performance of the teachers with high and low LMX.  Among the independent variables, LMX is found to be the strongest predictor of teachers’ performance. It is recommended that leaders should build strong LMX with all of their followers without differentiation to get maximum performance and organizational success. Trainings regarding leadership styles and behaviors should be provided to the leaders.