Principal’s Managerial Conceptual Skills and Teachers Job Performance in Secondary Schools in Nigeria

: This paper is a review study that examines the impact of principals’ managerial conceptual skills on teacher’s job performance in secondary schools in Nigeria and beyond. Secondary data were used in the paper. The data were sourced from print and online publications. The result collected revealed that 83% agreed principal’s managerial conceptual skills have an impact on teachers’ job performance in secondary schools. Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were made that the government should design training programmes for school principals on how to apply the appropriate managerial styles and skills in every situation that arises in school administration. Principals should supervise, guide and help teachers to improve their professional skills by supporting the teachers and providing necessary resources for them to work.


Introduction
The secondary school system is a very crucial level of the educational system.It is a gateway to tertiary education and a ripe age for developing students' potential.It is at this level of education that the entrepreneurial and vocational skills of the students are cultivated.The contribution of this level of education to tertiary education cannot be overemphasized (Akporehe, & Asiyai, 2023).The Principals or school administrators are the heads and managers of secondary schools in Nigeria.The school manager, who is also referred to, as the school administrator (Okon, in Mbon, 2017), must create a task-oriented climate where teachers will be committed to work.Peretomode in Mbon, (2017), note that one major concern of educational administrators has been how to motivate, create and ensure a feeling of job satisfaction and high morale in their teachers and other subordinates since it is empirically known that motivated and satisfied teachers with high morale, tend to be more committed to their duties and also more productive in their work.
The functions or roles of principals or school administrators include; making decisions on policies, objectives, strategies etc; designing the communication network of the school to pass the right information and get feedback at the right time; applying the right leadership style to raise teachers' morale for effective performance in the school.It behoves from here that for teachers to perform at the peak of their ability in a given secondary school, the Principals or school administrators must be able to use the right managerial skills for decision-making, communicating with teachers, motivating the teachers and raising teachers' enthusiasm towards hard work and effective task performance (Mbon, 2017;Ogunode, 2021;Ogunode Ojochnemi, & Ayoko, 2023).Principals or school administrators are also saddled with responsibilities of planning, organizing, resource allocation and plant management according to (Mohammed, Ogunode, Yahaya, 2021;Olowonefa & Ogunode, 2021).Managerial skills are important for principals to possess because they make principals achieve more in school management.Akporehe, et al (2023) noted that the principal, as the person at the helm of affairs in the school, occupies a unique position, he exercises influence on the improvement of education, interprets policies, executes instructional programmes, sees to staff development and ensures adequate and proper management of the school.A school having a principal who lacks managerial skills may be dotted with many administrative challenges including indiscipline among staff and students, teachers' malfeasances, and low performance.
Managerial skills are professional skills used by school principals to organize, coordinate, control and administer school human and materials resources to realize the school's objectives.Kamete, (2014) asserted that school principal management skills are a collection of qualities and characteristics in the managers' personalities that allow them to handle the organization's work more effectively.Analoui & Madhoun, (2002) described managerial skills as advanced professional expertise that principals have to hold to fulfil the duties and responsibilities in school management whereby teachers should be prepared with skills to carry out activities.For managers, Management achievement and effectiveness of school principals depend more on their managerial skills.Therefore, school principals as https://edu.pubmedia.id/index.php/jpna managers must possess the skills needed for school management (Singhal et al., 2005).Managerial skills of principals are the special abilities to administer the schools which are usually attributed to training and practice.In other words, we can say that managerial skills are a set of behaviours that lead to effective job performance and without them, in many cases, the knowledge of school managers does not have any effects (Akporehe, et al 2023).Hartati, Pepriyeni, and Suryana (2019);and Harling (2018) stipulated that the managerial skills of the school principles: conceptual, human interaction, and technical skills that enable the educational institution to understand the art and management science in fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of the principal.Enukoha, Asuquo, Inaja and Petters in Mbon, (2017) lamented that for over 20 years there has been a great outcry about the poor and deplorable state of the Nigerian public secondary schools and their products.This establishes the fact that teachers in secondary schools are not performing their tasks effectively, which may be consequential to the managerial skills adopted by the various principals in relating and managing the teachers are not effective.It seems most principals in Nigerian secondary schools fail to use the right conceptual skills for proper management schools.Based on this, the paper is aim to examine the impact of conceptual skills on teachers job performance in the secondary schools in Nigeria.

Objectives of the Study
In general, the objective of this study is to examine the impact of principals` managerial skills on teachers` job performance in secondary schools in Nigeria.Specially, the study will focus on 1.To examine the impact of principals` managerial conceptual skills on teachers` job performance in secondary schools in Nigeria.

Research Question of the Study
The following research question was formulated to guide the study.
1. What is the impact of principals` managerial conceptual skills on teachers` job performance in secondary schools in Nigeria?

Assumption of the Study
The following assumption was formulated for the study.
1. Principals` managerial conceptual skills have an impact on teachers` job performance in secondary schools in Nigeria.

Literature Review
Conceptual skill is the mental capability to initiate, organise, interpret and harmonise ideas and constructs related to the workings of the organisation and in keeping with the visions and goals of the entity.Katz (2002) opined that conceptual skill allows the leader to think through ideas, and abstractions and theorise on hypothetical conditions as well as make insights, strategizing via long and short-term plans and putting them into action.Okeke (2007) posited that conceptual skill enables the principal to perform the functions of building relationships, diagnosing the situation and generating an alternative https://edu.pubmedia.id/index.php/jpncourse of action.Okeke further stated that innovations and changes in the school are only possible when the change itself has been conceptualized-establishing a relationship for effective implementation of the modification.Changes or innovations in school should be from simple to complex; sweeping changes do not always lead to effectiveness.Peretomode (2012) maintained that conceptual skill is mainly related to knowledge in as much as managerial effectiveness is strongly related to high-level intellectual and mental exercise requiring extensive access to organised knowledge and information.Babatunde (2014) further stated that conceptual skill is required by all top-level managers to enable them to arrive quickly at the true nature of situations and make timely decisions.From the above, conceptual skill is a principal managerial skill that allows him or her to think deeply about ideas and theories and as well identify and organize strategies to solve school pressing problems.
On the other hand, Ogunode (2023) conceptualized teacher job performance as the implementation of a teacher's assigned responsibilities in the school.Teacher job performance is the extent to which the teachers are carrying out their official responsibilities in the schools (Ogunode, Olowonefa, & Ayoko 2023).Teacher job performance refers to the execution of the instructor's responsibilities and tasks in educational institutions (Josiah, Audu and Ogunode, 2023).Teacher job performance is the level by which the teachers accomplish their given functions and assignments in the schools (Ogunode 2023).Teachers' job performance is the extent they are committed to effective pedagogical delivery and exhibit uprightness and academic excellence in conducting academic activities (Uko et al., 2015).Teachers' job performance is the ability of teachers to display the right attitude to work by being committed and dedicated to the teaching job and making frantic efforts towards the accomplishment of school goals and objectives (Akporehe, et al2023)).Also, Bassey, Agbade & Ogunode (2023) and Ogunode and Josiah (2023) defined teacher job performance as the extent to which the teachers have attained the objectives of teaching in the schools.Teachers' job performance is the level at which the instructor has been able to execute the assigned functions in the school environment.The job performance of teachers is very important to the school because the success or failure of the teachers affects the school system.From the above, teacher job performance is the level of execution of official assignments within a timeframe in school.

Methodology
This study is a review study that depends on secondary data.The secondary data were collected from print and online publications.A total of 53 empirical and position papers were collected for the study.The study employed the elimination method to eliminate works of literature considered not valid for the paper.After the elimination method was used to critically evaluate the validity of the works of literature, only 30 works of literature were found valid and useful for the study putting into consideration the topic and subtopics to cover.Percentage methods were employed to collate the number of literatures that are in agreement with the assumption and those literatures in disagreement.A Percentage https://edu.pubmedia.id/index.php/jpn of 50% above is regarded as valid and accepted while 49% and below are regarded as invalid or rejected.

Data Analysis
Secondary data on works of literature on managerial conceptual skills were reviewed in this section to establish the assumption of the study.Ayalew, Itegi, & Muchanje, ( 2022) conducted a study that established the relationship between the conceptual skills of the school principals and the instructional effectiveness of the teachers in secondary schools, in the Central Gondar region, Ethiopia.The study revealed that there was no statistically significant relationship between the principals' conceptual managerial skills with teachers 'instructional effectiveness.The study concludes that principals' conceptual managerial skills have no significant relationship with teachers' instructional effectiveness.In light of the findings, recommendations for school principals, teachers, the Ministry of Education and suggestions for further research were discussed.
The study by Amemtenaan, (2021) investigated principals' managerial skills and effective instructional supervision in public secondary schools in Rivers State.Seven research questions and seven hypotheses guided the study.The findings revealed that principals as school managers in Rivers State possess technical skills, human skills, decisionmaking skills and team management skills which are positive and moderate in relationship and conceptual skills are at a positively high relationship between principals' managerial skills and effective instructional supervision.Nwogu & Ebunu, (2019) did a study that examined the principal's technical and conceptual skills required for effective administration of public secondary schools in Delta State.The findings of the study among others revealed that principals in the public secondary schools in Delta State applied technical and conceptual skills to a high extent in the performance of their administrative functions.Recommendations made included that school principals should learn how, when and where to apply the appropriate leadership styles in varying situations that arise in dynamic school environments.The study also recommended that principals should assist teachers properly in terms of extracting schemes of work from the curriculum and in providing or improvising appropriate instructional materials for different topics.
According to Thamaraiselvi (2018), a principal is required to have conceptual competency to establish the strategic vision and plans of the organization.A leader can reach the highest management on the condition that he has the necessary conceptual competency.With the help of conceptual competency, a manager can analyze the condition and the situation and overcome some problems or obstacles faced by the organization (Sidek & Mohamad, 2014).One key aspect of conceptual skills is communication skills; principals must endeavour to maintain good working relationships between them and their teachers; when this is missing, the productivity of the teacher might be negatively affected (Nwogu;Ebunu, 2019;Onyeike, 2013: Okorie, 2012).https://edu.pubmedia.id/index.php/jpnA principal with conceptual competency accomplished the task as a disturbance handler.It means that the principal can anticipate the obstacles in the school's development, manage the changes, as well as create a conducive school culture and climate for teachers and staff productivity.Therefore, it increases teachers' job satisfaction and work commitment (Rachmawati & Suyatno, 2020).Suresh and Kodikal (2015), accentuate that conceptual competency gives the least contribution, compared to technical and interpersonal competency, to support the improvement of subordinates' job satisfaction.

Discussion
The study discovered that a principal's managerial conceptual skills have an impact on a teacher's job performance.This finding is in consonant with the study of Babatunde (2014) who reported that a significant relationship exists between conceptual skills and effective school administration.These findings indicate that principals in Delta State secondary schools are competent in conceptual skills application.Also, the result is in line with the findings of Laghar, Siddiqui, and Shaheen (2021) that the managerial skills (conceptual skills) of head teachers play a crucial role in the performance of the teachers.The head teachers` conceptual skills have a direct relation with the teachers` creativity.Headteachers need to possess and sharpen these skills to enable them to get better results in the teaching and learning process.It is a better approach as well that enhances the teachers` creativity.They also need to relate well with teachers and also harness the resources at their disposal for improved teachers` performance in terms of creativity.

Conclusion
The study concluded that a principal's managerial conceptual skills have an impact on a teacher's job performance.The result agreed with the assumption of the study that stated that a principal's managerial conceptual skills have an impact on a teacher's job performance in secondary schools.
Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were made; 1.The government should design a training programme for school principals on how to apply the appropriate managerial styles and skills in varying situations that arise in a school administration dynamic environment.Principals should supervise, guide and help teachers to improve their professional skills by supporting the teachers and providing necessary resources for them.