Servant-leadership roles of principals on the work alienation perceptions of teachers

Yildiz Ünsal and Mehmet Emin Usta

African Educational Research Journal
Published: April 21 2021
Volume 9, Issue 2
Pages 350-366
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30918/AERJ.92.21.037

Abstract

Servant leadership is a modern approach to leadership that has been the subject of a growing number of investigations in recent years. As with any organization within the social structure, alienation is also occurring in the school organization. High level of alienation threatens the functioning of the school organization; in a healthy way function. It was seen as important to know the effect of servant leadership behavior on the alienation of teachers. This research was conducted to examine the relationship between servant leadership and work alienation, based on the opinions of teachers. The data of the research conducted in the descriptive screening model were obtained from 484 teachers working in all primary, secondary and high schools in the Central Districts of Şanlıurfa Province in Turkey. The Servant Leadership Scale and Teachers' Alienation Scale for Teachers were used to determine the servant leadership behaviors of principals that teachers perceive and their level of work alienation. As a result of this research, it was found that the perceptions of the servant leadership of the participants towards their principals were high, and their job alienation levels were weak. While the perceptions of the servant leadership differed in terms of the teachers’ school location, the way their administrators were appointed, the type of their school, the number of teachers in their school and their marital status variable, these did not differ significantly in terms of the teachers’ gender, years of service, branch and educational status. Participants' level of alienation to work; showed a significant difference according to the school location and branch variable. On the other hand, there was no significant difference in terms of gender, years of service, appointment of administrators, school type, number of teachers in school, marital status and educational status. A negative relationship was found between teachers' perceptions of servant leadership and work alienation. According to this result, as the servant leadership score increases, the level of work alienation decreases. These results were studied according to the literature and recommendations were made to teachers and administrators.

Keywords: Servant leadership, alienation to work, educational institutions, school principals.

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