ABSTRACT
The headteacher is the leader and the manager in the school. There are many successful ways of leading and managing and how people actually behave in practice is a mixture of their ideas and personality. A headmaster has to decide how far to be democratic and how far autocratic. The purpose of this research was to find out about the type of leadership that is used by headmasters of elementary schools. The design of this research was descriptive qualitative research. The data for this research was collected through questionnaires and documentation. The research was carried in 32 state elementary schools in Telanaipura, Jambi city. A total of 128 individuals participated in the research. Among them, 96 teachers were included as a sample through a simple random sampling technique. Questionnaires on communication, decision-making, and delegation of duties were used to ascribe the headmaster leadership styles. Based on analysis of the questionnaires and documentation that related to the leadership style of the headmaster, this research revealed three important common styles of leadership: autocratic, democratic, and laissezfaire. In conclusion, the democratic style was the most commonly used to practice leadership in the state elementary schools of Telanaipura, Jambi city. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the headmasters of state elementary schools should adopt a mixture of autocratic and democratic styles of leadership.
