Every secondary school in Nigeria is headed by the principal, who is often referred to as the chief executive charged with the responsibilities of overseeing the day to day administration and management of the schools under his jurisdiction. No wonder they are often been regarded as both the academic and administrative head of secondary schools in Nigeria. The principals are saddled with the responsibilities of ensuring the smooth running of all the activities within the school using different approaches, methods and techniques in order for the realization of educational goals and objectives.

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Education in Nigeria is an instrument for effecting national development. The country’s educational goals have been set out in the National Policy on Education in terms of their relevance to the needs of the individual and the society. Against this backdrop, the National Policy on Education set up aims and objectives, which were to facilitate educational development in the country. In fostering these aims and objectives, the school principal has important roles to play. Among this roles include providing effective managerial skills and styles in the art and science of administering secondary schools, thereby enhancing better job performance among teachers that could enhance students’ academic performance.
It is therefore not surprising that there is enormous demand for effective management of secondary schools in Nigeria. It seems however, that quite a good number of school principals have not considered their styles of administration as determinants of students’ academic performance. Hence, some of them seem to find it extremely difficult to effectively lead their schools.
As educating a nation remains vital strategy for the development of the society throughout the developing world, studies on human capital development concur that it is the human resources of a nation and not its capital or natural resources that ultimately determine the pace of its economic and social development. The principal institutional mechanism for developing human capital is the formal education system of primary, secondary, and tertiary training. Since education is an investment, there is a significant positive correlation between education and socio-economic productivity.
The world is changing very rapidly and indeed this speed of change makes it almost impossible for any person of either gender or preferred managerial style to have all the knowledge, insight or power to achieve success. The old form of management that gave power and a title to one or few individuals, in most cases the males is rapidly becoming dysfunctional and jettison. Potential leaders of any gender should train themselves to adapt to the changing society and make every effort to teach and model the style of management which will most effectively lead the institution into achieving its set goals.
Performance of students in examinations is attributed to a number of factors; these include provision of physical facilities, classroom size, effective school discipline policies, administrative support and effective leadership. Good administration provides necessary guidance, clarity of direction and rewards for effective performance of students. More so, in any organization, human resources are the most important resources it has and therefore, the success of the organization depends entirely on how effectively its workers are managed. This means that sustained effort is needed to achieve integration where all the members are involved and work together with a sense of common purpose of achieving the organization’s goals.
PRINCIPAL MANAGERIAL SKILLS
Principal ship is a critical management skill involving the ability to encourage group of people towards common goal. Leadership focuses on the development of followers and their needs. Managers exercising transformational administrative style focus on the development of value system of employees, their motivational level and moralities with the development of their skills. There are different administrative styles of a school principal which include initiative, consideration and participatory structure of management.
Leadership at work in educational institutions is thus a dynamic process where an individual is not only responsible for the group’s tasks, but also actively seeks the collaboration and commitment of all the group members in achieving group goals in a particular context. Management in that context pursues effective performance in students, because it does not only examine tasks to be accomplished and who executes them, but also seeks to include greater reinforcement characteristics like recognition, conditions of service and morale building, coercion and remuneration.
Administration incorporates the accomplishment of the task, which is the organizational requirement and the satisfaction of employees, which is the human resource requirement. Therefore, without a proper managerial style, effective performance cannot be realized in schools. Even if the school has all the required instructional materials and financial resources, it may not be able to use them effectively, if the students are not directed in their use, or if the teachers who guide in their usage are not properly trained to implement them effectively.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Academic performance is the measurement of student achievement across various academic subjects. Teachers and education officials typically measure achievement using classroom performance, graduation rates, and results from standardized tests.
The term ‘academic performance’ has been described as the scholastic standing of a student at a given moment. It refers to how an individual is able to demonstrate his or her intellectual abilities. This scholastic standing could be explained as the grades obtained in a course or groups of courses taken. Performance is a measure of output and that the main outputs in education are expressed in terms of learning, that is, changes in knowledge, skills and attitudes of individuals as a result of their experiences within the school's system. Thus, in determining academic performance, grades could serve as prediction measures and as criterion measures.
Academic performance therefore is largely identified by a range of statistical indicators. Performance is the level of attainment of a person in an examination, that is, how an individual is able to demonstrate his or her abilities in an examination. Hence, Performance has been regarded as a measure of educational output.
PRINCIPAL MANAGERIAL SKILLS AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Students’ academic performance depends on a number of factors and as such the effective utilization of management techniques by school principals may bring about improved students’ performance in public examinations. Students’ academic performance refers to as the observable and non-observable outcome of teaching and learning activities. Various researchers in the field of education were of the opinion that students’ academic performance refers to the final grade which a student obtained after exposure to teaching and learning activities on his or her cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains in both internal and external examinations.
A school consists of the principal, teachers, non-teaching staff and students who interact with each other to accomplish predetermined goals. For a school organization to be kept together, effective administrative and efficient management skills are required. Effective administration in school has been widely noted as a factor that will make a difference between achievers and non-achievers. Dramatic changes noted in a work environment will result due to a visionary leadership who encourages and persuades rather than commands followers towards common goals. Principals are directly involved in influencing the activities of the students and school towards goal setting and goal attainment.
It has been observed over the years that there is a mix reaction from stakeholders on effective administrative styles among principals of secondary schools. It seems however that many of such principals have not considered their styles of administration as determinant of students’ academic performance. The major concern of parents is the experiences and administrative styles that principals’ exhibit as it is found to have direct bearing on the overall performance of students’ as well as the teachers since both are to perform under the monitoring and supervision of a principal. The dwindling performance of students of senior secondary schools in Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) in core subject of the school curriculum has been a source of concern to stakeholders and parents in education industry. Many reasons might have accounted for this. Among this was perhaps the observed deficient managerial style used by school principals as it is found to have direct effect on students’ academic performance.
Students’ performance in the Nigeria context mainly entails; teaching consistently with diligence, honesty and regularity orchestrated by increased good results from students; setting adequate written and practical exercises, ensuring effective marking, evaluating all exercises promptly and carefully and observing academic regulations and instructions. The feeling by many people, including the researcher, is that this is a shallow understanding of students’ performance. Therefore, performance of any students should not only be considered from the academic outcomes only, but should also focus on other education outcomes such as the affective domains and the psychomotor skills. In school environments therefore, students’ performance should not only be defined in terms of test scores, examination results, students’ ability to socially apply what is learnt, and the rate at which students move on to higher institutions of learning, but should consider the achievements of the school in other areas like equipping the learners with the requisite skills for survival.
CONCLUSION
The managerial and administrative styles of principals’ initiative structure of leadership styles is vital to students’ academic performance. This means that students’ academic performance in the schools is a function of effective managerial style used by principals in their respective school. In the field of management, there is no single management technique that works in all situations because situation differs. It is based on this assertion that it is imperative for school managers to become familiar with more than one management technique for making plans and decisions. Research in the past have proved that a number of these management techniques if put into effective use can aid the efficiency and effectiveness of the school. Management techniques is the ability of the principal in a secondary school to use a wide range of methods such as management by objective technique (MBO), supervisory technique, record keeping technique and motivational technique to achieve the objectives of secondary education. Therefore, it can be concluded that students’ academic performance in the schools is a function of the managerial style demonstrated by the principal.