The impact of perceptions toward the leadership styles of school principals and certain personal variables upon teachers' life satisfaction

This is a descriptive study conducted to examine the impact of perceptions about the (transactional and transformational) leadership styles of school principals, gender, age, love of teaching, and liking the school principal upon teachers' life satisfaction levels. The study universe consists of teachers employed at public schools (primary schools, secondary schools, and high schools) in Eyup, Gaziosmanpasa, Sultangazi, and Sisli districts of Istanbul in 2013-2014 academic year. Within this study universe, 305 teachers selected by random sampling method formed the study sample. "Leadership Styles Scale", "Life Satisfaction Scale" and a "Personal Information Form" were used to obtain the required data in the study. These scales were administered to the teachers to collect the data. SPSS 21 Software Pack was used for data analysis. Independent sample t-test were employed in the study in order to determine whether the teachers' life satisfaction levels significantly differed with their perceptions of the leadership styles of their school principals, their gender, their love for teaching profession, and their liking of their school principals. Additionally, Kruskal-Wallis H Technique and Mann-Whitney U Technique were employed in the study in order to determine whether the teachers' life satisfaction levels significantly differed their age. In the study, the significance level has been accepted as .05.The results showed that the teachers who perceive their school principals' leadership style as transformational leadership style have high life satisfaction levels. Life satisfaction levels were significantly higher among the teachers with perceptions of high transformational leadership style for their school principals than among those who perceive it as low transformational leadership. According to the study results, an examination of the impact of teachers' gender, age, love for teaching, and liking of their school principals upon their life satisfaction levels showed that the teachers' gender did not have any significant impact on their life satisfaction levels. Another result of the study was that the impact of the teachers' age on their life satisfaction levels was found to be significant. Life satisfaction levels were significantly higher among the teachers with ages of 30 and below than those aged 41-50, 51 and above. This finding demonstrates that there is a decline in life satisfaction levels with older age. The love of teaching profession among the teachers was found to have a significant effect on their life satisfaction levels. Life satisfaction levels were significantly higher among the teachers who love their profession than those who do not. The teachers' liking of their administrators was not found to have a significant effect on their life satisfaction levels in the study.