Managerial Skills and Distributive Leadership of School Heads as Predictors to Organizational Commitment of Teachers

This study explored the relationship between the managerial skills and distributive leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers in the Montevista District, Davao de Oro Division. Grounded in the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory, the research was motivated by challenges related to the teacher engagement and leadership effectiveness in Philippine schools. Using a descriptive-correlational design, data were collected from 100 elementary teachers through adapted survey questionnaires. Findings revealed that school heads exhibited very high levels of managerial skills, with mean scores of 4.65 for communication skills, 4.63 for human relation skills, and 4.57 for technical skills. Distributive leadership was also rated very high, particularly in coherent leadership with a mean of 4.66 and supervision with a mean of 4.47. Teachers demonstrated very high level of organizational commitment, with affective commitment scoring the highest with a mean of 4.60. Correlation analysis showed a strong positive relationship between managerial skills and organizational commitment with an r-value of 0.812 and a p-value < 0.001, while distributive leadership had a weaker but significant correlation with an r-value of 0.60 and a p-value < 0.001. Regression analysis identified supervision with a β of 0.39 and a p-value of 0.00 as the most influential predictor of organizational commitment, followed by technical skills and coherent leadership. These results emphasized the importance of effective school leadership, particularly supervisory and technical competencies in fostering teacher commitment and improving school performance.