Abstract: The current study investigated the leadership styles of principals and organizational climate as predictors of teacher effectiveness in secondary schools of Malawi. Descriptive survey method was employed. The sample comprised 150 teachers from both government and private schools in Chikwawa district in the South West Education Division which was selected using simple one stage cluster sampling. The results of the study were: a) teachers of both government and private schools had similar perception of leadership styles of principals’; b) teacher effectiveness of school teachers in government and private schools as perceived by principals’ was similar; c) organizational climate of government schools was similar to that of private schools; d) the leadership styles adopted by principals, organizational climate and teacher effectiveness of school teachers were significantly and positively related to each other and e) leadership styles adopted by principals’ and organizational climate were significant joint predictors of teacher effectiveness of school teachers. Transactional style made a significant contribution in predicting teacher effectiveness, followed by passive avoidant style.