Investigation of the relationship between the virtuous leadership behaviors of school principals and the perceptions of organizational justice of teachers

The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between the virtuous leadership behaviors of school principals and teachers' perceptions of organizational justice. The type of research is a correlational research that is conducted to determine the relationships between two or more variables and to obtain clues about cause and effect. In this context, a relational research was conducted with teachers working in the central districts of Diyarbakır (Bağlar, Kayapınar, Sur ve Yenişehir). The population of the research consists of 13313 teachers working in the central districts of Diyarbakır (Bağlar, Kayapınar, Sur ve Yenişehir) in the 2020-2021 academic year. Simple random sampling method was used in sample selection. The sample of the study consists of 390 teachers. In order to measure the virtuous leadership characteristics of school principals according to teachers' perceptions, The Virtuous Leadership Scale, developed by Wang (2011), adapted to Turkish and its validity and reliability study was carried out by Yıldırım and Kahveci; and in order to measure organizational justice perceptions, The Organizational Justice Scale, developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) and adapted to Turkish, and its validity and reliability study was conducted by Polat (2007), were used. During the data collection process, school principals were interviewed, and then data collection tools were given to volunteer teachers. Due to the pandemic conditions, it was conveyed to the teachers that online participation could be achieved and the data were collected from the teachers. Frequency, reliability, percentage, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), t-test, Pearson Correlation analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were applied to the obtained data. According to the research findings, while there were significant differences in the general and sub-dimensions of the organizational justice scale according to the variable of tenure at school, no significant differences were found in other demographic variables. When the relationship between teachers' organizational justice perceptions and school principals' virtuous leadership behaviors was examined, it was found that there was a positive, high-level and significant relationship. It can be said that as the virtuous leadership behaviors of school principals increase, teachers' perceptions of organizational justice also increase.