ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to find out the leadership behaviours of school heads of public and private junior high school head teachers in Tafo–Pankrono circuit Sub in Kumasi Metropolis and its impact of the students’ academic performance. The sample for the study consisted of 120 teachers comprising of 60 from public schools and 60 from private schools, together with 9 public school head masters and other 9 private school head masters. Questionnaire in the form of likert format ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4) was used to collect data. The reliability estimates for teachers was 0.85 and that of the head masters was 0.78. The methodological inquiry was quantitative research approach using descriptive cross-sectional design which included the following statistical analyses: mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. Findings revealed that whiles teachers in private schools agreed that their headmasters employed communication skills in managing their schools, their counterparts in public schools disagreed. The study also revealed that whiles teachers in public schools noted that the level students’ academic orientation in their schools was low, their counterparts in private schools claimed that it was high. The head master perception on the same issues indicated that both head teachers in public and private school agreed that the level of academic orientation in their schools was high. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government should make conscious effort to improve the leadership behaviours of head teachers in public school by running in-service training of leadership behaviours for them.