Principal's leadership styles in implementing non-academic programs : a case study of a private senior high school in Indonesia

Abstract

Education field has shown great interest in the scope of school leadership. Many education stakeholders begin to see the figure of the school principals as a determinant of the success of a school. However, school success is not easy due to the multilayered roles and challenges that principals face daily. One of the principals’ priorities is to fulfill the students’ needs. In practice, academic achievement is not the only thing that students concern. Particularly at the senior high level, completing school is not the only thing in students’ minds. Students begin to think about their future after graduation. Numerous life choices have the potential to be a heavier burden such as thinking about what to do after school, worrying about university, and wondering about career. In this regard, non-academic programs that emphasize selfpotential development at school play an important role. In Indonesia, the non-academic programs provided for self-potential development purposes at all levels of education are stated in the Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia (Permendikbud) No. 62 Year 2014 for extracurricular and No. 111 Year 2014 for Bimbingan Konseling (BK). The way principals implement the school programs can be seen in how they adopt leadership styles. Even though leadership styles sound familiar as principals’ daily practice, a deep understanding of this topic is still lacking. Moreover, not much research has been shed on the topic of school non-academic programs. This study aims to (1) Find out the non-academic programs provided by the school to support students’ needs (2) Explore the leadership style practiced by the principal to running the non-academic programs provided by the school to support students’ non-academic needs. (3) Explain the principal’s strategies in overcoming the challenges faced by the school in implementing the non-academic programs, and (4) Elaborate the efforts that can be carried out by the principal to improve the ongoing leadership style for the non-academic school programs’ improvement in the future. This study employed a Qualitative case study approach. The participants in this study were one school principal, one curriculum assistant, one Bimbingan Konseling (BK) teacher, one extracurricular coordinator, one student, and one parent from one selected private senior high school in Depok, Indonesia. Semi-structured interviews, school activity observations, and school document analysis were conducted to collect data. The data was analyzed thematically through several steps such as getting familiar with the data, generating the codes, constructing the themes, reviewing for any possible themes, naming the themes, and producing the reports. The findings from this study showed: (1) Extracurricular and BK are non-academic programs provided in the school which consist of programs that are held outside the classroom learning hours, programs that highlight noncognitive outcomes, and programs that uphold Multiple Intelligence (MI), (2) The principal at the selected school adopted the Participative leadership style in running the extracurricular program and the Laissez-faire (Delegative) leadership style in running the BK program, (3) The principal applied a tiered support system to overcome the constraints and weaknesses of the extracurricular and BK programs at the selected school, and (4) The principal’s initiative to enrich knowledge regarding the two non-academic programs emerged as the theme for improving the current leadership style in the selected school of this study. Based on the above findings, this study recommends further exploration of principals’ leadership styles in implementing non-academic programs at varied levels of education since students at different levels of education have different needs.