The relationship between high school administrators' paternalistic leadership behaviors and teachers' organizational silence levels

The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between the paternalistic leadership behaviors of high school administrators and the organizational silence levels of teachers. The research was conducted using correlational survey model. The population of the research consists of 921 teachers working in 25 public and 6 private high schools in Siirt in the 2019-2020 academic year. The sample of the study, on the other hand, consists of 386 teachers working in 16 public and 6 private high schools selected by simple random sampling method. "Paternalistic Leadership Scale" and "Organizational Silence Scale" were used in the research. In the analysis of research data; arithmetic mean (X), standard deviation (SD), frequency (f), percentages (%) values were calculated. In addition, t-test, ANOVA test, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were also used in the study. As a result of the research, it has been determined that the high school teachers' perceptions regarding the paternalistic leadership behaviors of the school administrators were at a moderate level. Teacher perceptions regarding philanthropic paternalism were found to be high, moderate in family atmosphere subscales, and low in the subscales of interventionism, authoritarianism and finding inadequacy. When analyzed according to demographic variables, it was determined that perceptions of teachers regarding school administrators' paternalistic leadership behaviors differed significantly according to gender and school type variable, but did not differ significantly according to education level, seniority and working time at school. In the study, it was determined that teachers' organizational silence levels were low in general. It has been determined that teachers' perceptions regarding the accepting subscale of organizational silence are low, moderate in the protective subscale, and low in the protective subscale. It was determined that the teachers' perceptions of organizational silence differed significantly according to the gender and school types but did not differ according to the variables of education level, seniority and working time at the school. According to the results of the correlational analysis, there is a positive and moderate relationship between paternalistic leadership's authoritarianism, interventionism and finding inadequacy subscale and organizational silence. It has been determined that there is a negative and moderately significant relationship between paternalistic leadership, creating a family atmosphere and benevolence subscale and organizational silence. As a result of the regression analysis, it has been determined that school administrators' paternalistic leadership behaviors significantly predicted teachers' organizational silence levels. In general, it can be concluded that school administrators' paternalistic leadership behaviors explained 36% of the variance of teachers' organizational silence levels.