Examining the relationship between teachers managerial spiritual leadership and school climate perceptions

Purpose: In this study, the bearing of the managerial spiritual leadership perceptions of teachers employed in high schools within the Ministry of National Education, on their perceptions of school climate was investigated. Besides, the subobjectives of the study is to determine whether managerial spiritual leadership and school climate perception levels of these teachers with regard to various demographical features (gender, age, marital status, education level, branch, school type, working time with the current school principal, professional seniority, tenure at the school they work in) differ or not, whether there is a significant relationship between their perceptions of managerial spiritual leadership and school climate and whether their perception levels of managerial spiritual leadership predict their school climate perception levels. Method: In this study, relational survey model, which is among the quantitative research models, was used. The population of the study included 2876 teachers employed in high schools within the borders of central districts in Eskişehir province (Odunpazarı and Tepebaşı) during the academic year 2022-2023. In this study, stratified sampling method was used. In line with this sampling method, the sample of the study included 346 teachers employed in 18 different high schools. The data of this study was gathered through "Managerial Spiritual Leadership Perception Scale" developed by Akıncı and Ekşi (2017) and "School Climate Scale" developed by Canlı, Demirtaş ve Özer (2018). In addition, a "Personal Information Form" was used to determine the demographic characteristics of the participants. The construct validity and internal consistency coefficients of the scales used for data collection in the study were re-examined with the current study data by performing confirmatory factor analysis and by calculating Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficients and the findings were presented. The study was obtained online via "Google Forms". To determine whether the data of study has a normal 4 distribution, Skewness and Kurtosis values were examined. Because the data had a normal distribution, parametric tests; t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), post-hoc tests, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis were applied in the analysis of the data. In this context whether the variables show significant differences according to the demographic characteristics of the participants was analyzed with t test and one-way ANOVA tests, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for the relationship between variables, and simple linear regression analyze was performed for the predictive variables. Results: The findings of the study revealed that teachers' perceptions of managerial spiritual leadership were at the "agree" level while their school climate perceptions were at the "mostly" level. While there is a significant difference in teachers' perceptions of administrator spiritual leadership according to the variables of gender, branch, school type and tenure at the school; there is no significant difference according to the variables of age, marital status, education level, working time with the current school principal and professional seniority. While there is a significant difference in teachers' perceptions of the school climate according to the variables of branch, school type and tenure at the school; there is no significant difference according to gender, age, marital status, education level, working time with the current school principal and professional seniority. Additionally, it was found that there was a positive and highly significant relationship between teachers' managerial spiritual leadership and school climate perceptions. According to the results of the regression analysis, it was determined that the teachers' perception of managerial spiritual leadership explained 60.9% of their perception of school climate. Conclusion and Suggestions: It was concluded that as high school teachers' managerial spiritual leadership perception levels increase, their school climate perception levels will also increase and teachers' perceptions of managerial spiritual leadership is a positive and significant predictor of their school climate perception. Based on these results; it is suggested that school administrators improve themselves in spiritual leadership in order to achieve educational goals and create a positive school climate in their institutions. In this regard, in-service training studies to be provided by the Ministry of National Education can improve spiritual leadership perceptions of school administrators. Keywords: Spiritual leadership, School climate, School principal, Teacher