Researching the relationship between distributed leadership behaviors of school principals and stress levels of teachers

The main purpose of this study is to reveal the relationship between the distributed leadership behaviors of school principals and the stress levels of teachers, based on the opinions of teachers working in primary and secondary schools. The population of the study consists of a total of 6,748 teachers working in public primary and secondary schools in the Şehitkamil district of Gaziantep province. The sample was determined by convenience sampling and criterion sampling methods, and 411 teachers participated in the study. Three different data collection tools were used in the data collection process: the "Personal Information Form" containing teachers' personal and professional information; the "Distributed Leadership Inventory," adapted into Turkish by Özdemir (2012); and the "Job Stress Scale," developed by Baltaş and Baltaş (2006). An Independent Samples t-test and One-Way ANOVA were used for the analysis of the data. According to the findings of the study, teachers' perceptions of the distributed leadership behaviors of school administrators and their levels of stress were found to be at a moderate level. Based on teachers' perceptions, it was determined that there was no significant difference between the distributed leadership behaviors of school administrators and the stress levels of teachers in terms of the variables of teachers' gender, professional seniority, education level, time spent at the school they work at and time working with their current administrators. The analysis revealed a weak but negative correlation between teachers' perceptions of the distributed leadership behaviors of their school principals and the stress levels they experienced. This indicates that as teachers' perceptions of distributed leadership behaviors increase, their job stress levels tend to decrease. However, it was concluded that distributed leadership behaviors do not significantly predict teachers' stress levels. In this context, distributed leadership is not seen as the sole determinant of teacher stress. Keywords: Distributed Leadership, Leadership, Stress, Teacher Stress