Impact of leadership styles of principals on organizational climate: A study with special reference to colleges in Nadia district (West Bengal) Dr. Roy Swapan Kumar*, Roy Suhas** *Assistant Professor, Commerce, Bethuadahari College Bethuadahari, Nadia, West Bengal, India **Associate Professor, Economics, Bethuadahari College Bethuadahari, Nadia, West Bengal, India Online published on 11 July, 2017. Abstract Leaders are said to be a key human resource in any organization. The success or failure of an organization depends on the role of a leader-how he/she leads the organization-how his/her staff are influenced by his/her activities-how effectively he/she uses his/her reservoir of workforce-how he/she strives to reach the goals of the organization etc. So leadership is an important factor that makes the organization successful. So good leadership style is sine qua non for business, government and other numerous organizations. Leadership transforms potential into reality. In this entire study, Principals/Teacher-in-Charges of higher educational institutions e.g. colleges (Government/Government-aided) have been treated as leaders. They use some styles of functioning while administering/governing the college. Such style of functioning i.e. leadership style may be liked or disliked by the staff of the colleges. Sometimes heads of the institutions prefer to exercise his/her power to make a sense that he/she has a rule book, can take any action against anyone, and above all his/her position makes a difference between him/her and the rest. This fanciful nation hampers the organizational climate, generates a sense of mistrust, insecurity among the staff of the institutions and also hinders the mental and emotional development of the staff. Such circumstances act as a hindrance for creating a congenial/conducive academic atmosphere and disrupt the smooth functioning of the institution. So the choice of leadership styles is very much important for smooth conduct of any organization. The total pattern of leaders’ actions (here the actions of the head of the institutions) as perceived by their staff is called leadership style. It represents the leader's philosophy, skills and attitudes in practice. In this paper, an attempt has been made to (a) discuss the different leadership styles in practice and (b) analyze and examine the perceptions of the respondents in order to gauge how leadership styles used by the Principals impact organizational climate. Top Keywords Human Resource, Leadership, Organization, Organizational Climate, Organizational Culture. Top |