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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 2127 – 2131

WCES 2014

Soft Skills Of Leaders And School Improvement In High

Performing Schools
Tang Keow Ngang a *, Siti Huwaina Mohamed b, Somprach Kanokorn c
a
School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang and 11800, Malaysia
b
Penaga Jaya Primary School, Penang and 13100, Malaysia
c
Department of Educational Administration, Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen and 40002, Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between soft skills of headmaster and school improvement in high
performing schools in Penang and Kedah state, Malaysia. Issue related to school leaders who are weak in management is very
common due to lacking of soft skills. School improvement is closely related to skills possessed by leaders. This study involved
205 teachers from six High Performing Schools. This study employs the quantitative method to collect data by using a research
instrument which is a questionnaire consisted of 105 items. Findings revealed that headmaster possessed high soft skills
according to their teachers' perceptions in general (mean = 4.309, SD = 0.324) meanwhile mean value of school improvement
was also at high level (mean = 3.839, SD = 0.295). The hypothesis test showed that all the eight components of leadership soft
skills have significant, positive and moderate relationship with school improvement and the r value ranged from 0.532 to 0.657.
Hopefully, headmasters do not underestimate the soft skills of leadership practices as the impacts on school improvement is
significant. Therefore, headmasters are advised to utilize soft skills in their leadership practice in order to enhance school
improvement.
© 2015
© 2014TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014
Keywords: Leadership soft skills, school improvement, High Performing School;

1. Introduction

An effective leader will give full attention to all important aspects of leadership such as leadership style, cultural
knowledge and thinking, collaboration, motivation, encouragement, curriculum management and leadership
empowerment in the workplace as reported by federal inspector in 2003 (Azizi et al., 2011). According to Jamilah &
Yusof (2011), the success of school lies in the effectiveness of the entire system, values, beliefs, climate, spirit and

* Tang Keow Ngang. Tel.: +6-017-539-6315

E-mail address: tang@usm.my

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.652
2128 Tang Keow Ngang et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 2127 – 2131

culture of the school community. High Performing Schools (HPSs) is one of the education National Key Results
Area (NKRA) aimed to boost school performance, creating a learning environment that is conducive to excellent
students thus become a model to other schools (Siti Noor, 2011). Crosbie (2005) identified the skills needed by
leaders which constitute many of the personal and interpersonal skills varieties. She argues that many of these skills
are desired and needed by all individuals and lists the eight components of leadership soft skills. The eight
components of leadership soft skills namely collaboration/teamwork, communication skills, initiative, leadership
ability, people development/coaching, personal effectiveness/mastery, planning and organizing, and presentation
skills. Researchers defined the eight components of leadership soft skills according to the definition given by Keow
Ngang, Wallapha & Saowanee (2013). Collaboration/teamwork refers to that administrator finds common ground
and cooperates to solve problems. In the same token, administrator effectively participates in meetings and groups,
encourages and values diversity through understanding and appreciation of others' personalities, concerns, feelings,
thoughts, motives, needs, skills and competencies. In addition, administrator is considered as establishing consensus
through group discussions, helping each person to articulate his/her own opinion, sensitive to the needs of groups
and individuals, open and honest in expressing his/her thoughts, ideas and feelings, while remaining sensitive to the
thoughts, ideas and feelings of others. Communication skills refer to that administrator adapts communication to
listeners' needs, checking listeners' understanding by listening attentively to the complete message, restating and
questioning listeners to ensure comprehension. In addition, administrator is considered as seeking to negotiating
win-win solutions to issues, clarifying problems and resolving conflicts by being open and using employees
productively to enhance quality of decisions. Initiative refers to that administrator recognizes and reacts to problems,
is self-starting, takes actions to achieve goals beyond specific job responsibilities, is not bias in taking action, readily
faces up to and takes a stand on difficult issues. Initiative also refers to that administrator makes decisions and takes
actions before being directed or forced, and does things proactively. Leadership ability refers to administrator
provides and communicates strategic vision to employees in order to mobilize others to act, assigns individuals
suited to the job based on competencies and delegates responsibilities to optimize staff’s skills. Apart from that,
administrator takes smart risks to achieve innovative and effective solutions encourages wide participation in goal
setting, decision making, and problem-solving. Leadership ability also refers to administrator gives employees the
authority and support to make decisions, appropriately uses and personalizes recognition and incentives to reward,
sets a personal example, shows consistency and maintains high standards of integrity and ethical conduct during
both good and tough times, learns from experience, gains insights from mistakes, and analyzes both successes and
failures for clues to improvement. People development/coaching refers to administrator recommends and supports
appropriate education/training programs, recognizes employee’s performance with positive feedback and corrective
feedback to motivate employees, and focuses feedback on specific behaviour not on the individual. In addition,
administrators with people development/coaching recognize exceptional contributions, and evaluate employees
accurately, consistently, and on time. Personal effectiveness/mastery refers to administrator seeks to understand and
exploits personal strengths and strives to build competency in areas of weakness. Similarly, an administrator having
this characteristic is personally committed to and actively works to continuously improve oneself, actively pursues
learning/self-development to enhance performance, actively seeks and is open to new information and feedback
from others, adjusts one’s viewpoint and/or behaviour according to the situation, functions effectively, and
maintains good relationships even under stressful conditions. Planning and organizing refers to administrator defines
short and long-range objectives, uses other resources to achieve planned goals, prioritizes quickly in an environment
with many variables, pursues tasks and goals with persistence despite daily distractions, achieves established goals
by assigned deadlines, meets commitments, fulfils promises, and responds to change with flexibility and appropriate
speed. Presentation skills refer to administrator has good presentation skills, presenting himself/herself in a
professional manner, and creating a good first impression. Apart from that, administrator as effective in presenting
ideas to others whether in individual and/or group situations, makes effective use of visual aids in presentations,
thinks carefully about effect of words, vocal quality and nonverbal actions, and uses appropriate methods of
persuasion to convince others to accept an idea, plan, or activity. Presentation skills also refer to administrator
having good presentation skills such as invites input/questions from others, encourages open dialogue/exchange of
information and ideas, listens actively, and addresses the emotional position of audience members.
The meaning of school improvement in this study was adopted from Van Velzen, Miles, Ekholm, Hameyer &
Robin (1985) in their International School Improvement Program. School improvement is a sustained, systematic
 Tang Keow Ngang et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 2127 – 2131 2129

effort, intended to make changes in learning and other internal related conditions with the aim ahead to implement
educational goals effectively.

2. Statement of the problem

In order to realize the aspiration of education, school leader as a key person should lead the school so that it will
function more properly and effectively to enhance the success of the school. However, the issue of leadership
weakness among the school leaders is not a new issue. There are still a number of less-skilled school leaders due to
lack of soft skills of the individual leaders (Lokman & Hairul Anuar, 2011). The biggest variables in a workplace
are employees, people possessing complex needs, strengths, weaknesses, biases, and not to mention, fears.
Therefore, organizational leaders need to help employees communicate, find meaning in their work, and work in
cooperation with each other at a higher level. Synergized workplace elements of the leader include his or her ability
to communicate, get along with different people, work as a team, infuse creativity, create an environment where
people feel valued, and become eager to contribute to the organization (Tang, 2012).

3. Objectives of the study

Based on the above problem statements, this study intends to achieve the following objectives:
a. To identify the frequency implementation of the eight components of leadership soft skills by headmasters.
b. To identify the teachers' perceptions on school improvement.
c. To examine the relationship between each component of leadership soft skills and school improvement.

4. Methodology of the Study

This research is a survey using a structured self-administered mailed questionnaire to teachers in six High
Performing Primary Schools (HPPSs) in Kedah and Penang state which are located in the northern part of
Peninsular Malaysia. It utilizes quantitative research methodology involving a sample of 205 teachers upon a total
population as 433. A purposive sampling was employed. The questionnaire was administered in two versions,
English and Malay language. There were 101 items including demographic items and consists of 3 sections. Section
A of the questionnaire was intended to gather information regarding demographic factors of the respondents which
included information pertaining to their personal background such as their gender, age, school location and length of
service. Section B was specifically designed by researchers to gauge the frequency of the headmasters'
implementation of leadership soft skills at their workplace. There were eight components for leadership soft skills,
each consisting of 10 items, give a total of 80 items. A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the teachers'
responses towards their headmasters. Section C contained 21 items were scored using a five-point Likert scale, was
related to school improvement adapted from Elizabeth A. Le Clear (2005).

5. Findings

5.1. Descriptive Statistical Analysis

Table 1 shows the mean scores and standard deviations of the frequency implementation on the eight components
of leadership soft skills by headmasters. As indicated in Table 1, the mean scores for the eight components of
leadership soft skills ranged from 4.086 to 4.394. This show that, the most frequently implemented leadership soft
skills by headmasters was collaboration/teamwork (mean = 4.394, SD = 0.335). This is followed by leadership
ability (mean = 4.393, SD = 0.349) and presentation skills (mean = 4.389, SD = 0.456). The skill least frequently
implemented by headmasters was initiative (mean = 4.086, SD = 0.313). Therefore, based on Table 1, it can be
concluded that headmasters, in actual situation, were implementing highly all the eight components of leadership
soft skills. In addition, the mean score and standard deviation of school improvement was high from teachers'
perceptions (mean = 3.839, SD = 0.295).
2130 Tang Keow Ngang et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 2127 – 2131

Table 1. Mean scores and standard deviations of the eight components of leadership soft skills

Components of leadership soft skills Mean scores Standard deviation

Collaboration/teamwork 4.394 0.335
Leadership ability 4.393 0.349
Presentation skills 4.389 0.456
People development/coaching 4.369 0.346
Communication skills 4.332 0.334
Planning and organizing 4.261 0.518
Personal effectiveness/mastery 4.249 0.432
Initiative 4.086 0.313

5.2. Inferential Statistical Analysis

As indicated in Table 2, school improvement was significant, positive and moderately correlated with all the
eight components of leadership soft skills. This means that, to a great extent, an increase in leadership ability (r =
0.657; p<0.01) is associated with an increase in the level of school improvement. This is followed by
communication skills (r = 0.643; p<0.01), planning and organizing (r = 0.637; p<0.01), personal
effectiveness/mastery (r = 0.626; p<0.01), presentation skills (r = 0.602; p<0.01), initiative (r = 0.567; p<0.01) and
collaboration/teamwork (r = 0.560; p<0.01). However, to a least extent, an improvement in personal
development/coaching (r = 0.532; p<0.01) is associated with an increase in the level of school improvement. In
summary, among the eight components of leadership soft skills, leadership ability had the strongest association with
school improvement while personal development/coaching had the weakest association with school improvement.

Table 2. Correlation coefficients between the eight components of leadership soft skills and school improvement

Components of leadership soft skills r value p value

Leadership ability 0.657** 0.000
Communication skills 0.643** 0.000
Planning and organizing 0.637** 0.000
Personal effectiveness/mastery 0.626** 0.000
Presentation skills 0.602** 0.000
Initiative 0.567** 0.000
Collaboration /teamwork 0.560** 0.000
Personal development/coaching 0.532** 0.000
**Significant at 0.01

6. Discussion and Conclusion

This study proves that there is the influence of leadership soft skills practices with school improvement.
However, past research showed that leadership soft skills are as critical as leadership hard skills, especially in
managing employees for organizational excellence (Siti Asiah, 2011). Therefore a headmaster should adopt all the
eight components of leadership soft skills namely collaboration/teamwork, communication skills, initiatives,
leadership ability, personal development/coaching, personal effectiveness/mastery, planning and organizing and
presentation skills to assist in school improvement progress. In addition, this study also contributes to the literature
 Tang Keow Ngang et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 2127 – 2131 2131

of leadership in the Malaysian education context. In conclusion, leadership soft skills is one of the leadership styles
that is able to empower teachers and develop human capital that required in the new trend of educational leadership
today. Thus headmasters have to be smart to evaluate teachers' strength in order to achieve success in the
organizations they led. In addition, school leaders need to be a good communicator, intelligent and skilful in
managing collaboration and planning to move the schools to achieve organizational vision and mission that has been
attempted. Therefore, all the school leaders are proposed to practise leadership soft skills in their school
management in order to enhance school improvement. The results of this study have several implications for
academics and researchers. This is especially true as they need to better understand the roles that leadership soft
skills may play in increasing school improvement.

Acknowledgements
The project was made possible with funding from Research Creativity and Management Office, Universit Sains
Malaysia, Malaysia.

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