Teachers experiences on administrative blindness in school administrators

Administrator blindness, which occurs in administrators and is an administrative disease, refers to the situation in which administrators fail to recognize, identify or remain insensitive to existing problems, weak points, risks or opportunities that may occur. Administrator blindness experienced by school administrators is thought to cause many negativities in school organizations. For this reason, it is very important to examine the problems experienced in the organization in relation to the executive blindness experienced by school administrators and the experiences of teachers about school administrators experiencing blindness in order to propose solutions to these problems. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the experiences of teachers working in public middle schools in Izmir province in the 2023-2024 academic year. In the study, it was tried to reveal what administrator blindness means, the characteristics of administrators who experience blindness, the causes and effects of administrator blindness and how it can be prevented. 15 teachers working in public middle schools participated in the study. The research was conducted with phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research designs, and the data was collected by interview technique. A semi-structured interview form was used as a data collection tool. The data was analyzed by content analysis technique and research findings were obtained. Teachers defined administrator blindness under the sub-themes of perceptual inadequacy, managerial inadequacy, and communication inadequacy. The characteristics of school administrators experiencing administrator blindness were divided into sub-themes as personality, psychological, social, ethical, emotional, and professional characteristics. The most repeated codes in these sub-themes are being stuck in their own perspectives, being anxious, being closed to innovation, and development, being unfair, not empathizing with stakeholders, and being oppressive and autocratic. The discourses of school administrators experiencing administrative blindness during administration were divided into sub-themes as administrative discourses and negative discourses. The behaviors and practices of school administrators experiencing blindness during management were grouped under the sub-themes of management and communication. It was determined that the reasons for school administrators' experiencing administrative blindness are in the sub-themes of personal characteristics, education and equipment, communication problems, power and control problems, social, and psychological problems. The effects of administrator blindness experienced by school administrators are divided into sub-themes as effects on school climate, on teachers, on education and training, on administrators and parents. What can be done to prevent administrator blindness experienced by school administrators; psychological support, democracy and participation, managerial competences, communication, and school environment. In line with the findings obtained, suggestions were made at the end of the research. As a result of the research, suggestions were made such as creating workshops, training programs and feedback mechanisms to help school administrators overcome their perceptual deficiencies and prevent administrator blindness; conducting research to find out whether administrator blindness varies at different levels, how it is perceived by students and parents, and what the situation is like in private schools.