The research was conducted in the positivist paradigm to determine the interactive effect of school principals' leadership style and the teaching characteristics (traditional Vs. Progressive) of school teachers on curriculum implementation. The research further explores how teaching characteristics mediate between school principals' leadership style and curriculum implementation. Higher secondary school teachers' perceptions were collected from 600 teachers teaching at secondary schools in six districts of Punjab. Multistage sampling was used to draw a sample from a large and diverse population. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to determine the relationship among various constructs leadership styles, teacher characteristics, and strategies used for the curriculum implementation at secondary schools of Punjab. Path analysis using Structure Equation Modeling with AMOS yielded unique relationships among leadership styles of school principals and teacher characteristics for curriculum implementation. Democratic style of school principals was found to exert maximum direct influence on curriculum implementation with no teacher characteristics mediation. However, it is found that both teacher characteristics play a significant mediating role in curriculum implementation; the visionary style was best mediated through progressive characteristics, and 2) commanding style was mediated through traditional characteristics. The research draws attention to existing gaps in developing teacher expertise for curriculum implementation, which need to be addressed to prepare future teacher leadership in Pakistan.

The role of the principal has been explored through using Goleman's leadership styles and leadership strategies in curriculum implementation. However, there are certainly other factors as well which influence successful curriculum implementation, such as teaching characteristics and provision of facilities. The data was collected from 600 teachers and 36 headteachers across Punjab using multistage sampling. The data were organized and recorded with SPSS 21. Descriptive and inferential analysis was used to determine the interactive effect of factors (leadership styles, teaching characteristics, and leadership strategies) in curriculum implementation. The results indicate that both dissonant and resonant leaders achieve their objectives in different ways. Resonant leaders adopt more visionary and coaching style to be successful with progressive teachers; whereas, dissonant leaders use the more commanding style with traditional teachers. Content analysis has been used to analyze structured interviews with headteachers; comparison between the responses of teachers and school principals helped us to identify gaps in leadership and successful implementation of the curriculum.