The relationship between the leadership styles perceived by teachers in elementary schools and their levels of job satisfaction

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LEADERSHIP STYLES PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND THEIR LEVELS OF JOB SATISFACTION ABSTRACT The behaviors and characteristics of the leaders of education have an important effect on the improvement of schools which are open social systems, gaining their aims, the success of students and the job satisfaction of their workers.Throughout this research, the determination of the relationship between the leadership styles perceived by teachers of public elementary schools and their job satisfaction has been aimed atBesides, this elementary school teacher's general, internal and external level of job satisfaction and elementary school directors' demographic variants, teachers in elementary school perpection of leadership styles and whether it shows difference according to the elementary school directors'_variants or not; and depending on teachers in elementary schools, perpection of leadership styles between, leadership styles and general job satisfaction,differences of external satisfaction levels has been examined. İn this research, there has been used two different questionnaires. From these questionnaires, "Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire" includes. 36 questions and three main factors.The other questionnaire which has been used is"Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire". This questionnaire includes 20 questions.Both questionnaires have been applied to 253 elementary school teachers working in public elementary schools in Pendik, Istanbul. Results have been analized in SPSS 1 1.5 statistics program. As the results of the analyses; there has been found significant difference between the job satisfaction of elementary school teachers and piriority, educational state and gender of their directors.There has been found significant differences between "Transformational Leadership" styles and piriority, educational state and gender of directors.This significant difference has not been found in "Transactional Leadership" style and "Laissez-faire Leadership" styles.Also, there is a high relation between teachers' perception of leadership styles and "Transformational Leadership" styles, moreover, the same relation is on the low level in "Transactional Leadership" style.There is no relation between "Laissez-faire Leadership" dimension and satisfaction. Key words:Leadership, elementary, job satisfaction, teacher. xv