Impact of teachers’ leadership styles and motivation on the students’ academic achievement in public schools of Karachi, Pakistan

The impact of teacher leadership styles on students' academic achievement in public schools in Karachi, Pakistan, where rapid growth in privatised education and the declining credibility of public schools have created significant educational divides, leading to low staff motivation and a strict curriculum to meet academic demands. Transformational Leadership and Organisational Culture theory explores the direct effects of teacher leadership style, motivation and school culture on student academic achievement. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 385 public school teachers and Structural Equation Modelling was used to analyse the data with SmartPLS. The results indicate that teacher leadership style has a strong positive impact on student motivation (β = 0.366, p < 0.001) and academic achievement (β = 0.389, p < 0.001). Teacher motivation directly affects student outcomes, but does not moderate the impact of leadership style. School culture showed no moderating effect and exhibited a weak or negative association with academic achievement. The findings suggest that teacher leadership, especially that of engaged teachers, is a crucial factor in improving educational equity. These results imply that investing in leadership and motivation training for teachers can be a cost-effective strategy to improve student success in underperforming public schools.