Universal Journal of Educational Research 8(12A): 7864-7869, 2020 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.082575 The Effect of Principal Leadership and Internal Communication on Teacher Performance in Indonesia Sabar Narimo, Dhany Efita Sari * , Diana Ofintan, Surya Jatmika Department of Accounting Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Indonesia Received August 3, 2020; Revised November 19, 2020; Accepted November 29, 2020 Cite This Paper in the following Citation Styles (a): [1] Sabar Narimo, Dhany Efita Sari, Diana Ofintan, Surya Jatmika, "The Effect of Principal Leadership and Internal Communication on Teacher Performance in Indonesia," Universal Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 8, No. 12A, pp. 7864-7869, 2020. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.082575. (b): Sabar Narimo, Dhany Efita Sari, Diana Ofintan, Surya Jatmika (2020). The Effect of Principal Leadership and Internal Communication on Teacher Performance in Indonesia. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 8(12A), 7864-7869. DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2020.082575. Copyright©2020 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract This research aimed to 1) investigate the effect of principal leadership based on teacher perception on teacher performance, 2) investigate the effect of internal communication between principal and teacher on teacher performance, and 3) investigate the effect of principal leadership and internal communication on teacher performance. Causal comparative method was performed in this research. 110 teachers from private high schools in Indonesia were the population in this study. Questionnaires were used to collect data for all variables. T-test and multiple regressions were performed to analysis hypotheses in this study. Results indicated that principal leadership has a positive effect and significantly correlates with teacher performance. Also, internal communication between principal and teachers has a positive effect and significantly correlates with teacher performance. In addition, principal leadership based on teacher perception and internal communication has a positive effect on teacher performance. Therefore, it is essential to do further research about another factors influencing teacher performance. Keywords School Principal Leadership, Teacher Performance, Internal Communication, Private High Schools 1. Introduction Teachers are professional educators who have the task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assessing, and evaluating students in formal education, basic education, and secondary education. Therefore, tasks that must be performed by teachers, making them as the center of attention improve the quality of education. The quality of education will be adequate if the teachers’ performance is adequate. However, the ability of teachers to improve their performance does not always develop properly. In addition, teachers’ performance is still relatively poor. It is caused by an influence from other factors, such as within teacher's personality or outside the teacher's personality. Mahgoub & Elyas stated that development of teacher performance was in the low level, because they had not been able to interact with students and their teaching methods were still using conventional ones [2]. Therefore, teachers must be encouraged with teaching aids that can assist in learning such as communication skills, discussion and dialogue, problem-solving, role-play, discovery, and brainstorming. Research showed that vocational high school teachers had low pedagogic and professional performance. It was influenced by factors of expectations about reward, teachers’ abilities, encouragement, internal and external rewards, and low job satisfaction. Besides, there were also found problems and constraints on teachers, 1) quality, quantity, and distribution, 2) welfare, 3) teacher management, 4) teacher appreciation, and 5) teacher education [3]. Findings showed teacher performance was low due to teacher expertise in elementary, junior high, high school