The relationship between the emotion management competencies of school principals during a change process and organizational change cynicism levels of teachers

The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between the emotion management competencies of school principals during a change process and organizational change cynicism levels of teachers working in primary and elementary schools in Uşak. Moreover, it was investigated whether the emotion management competencies of school principals and organizational change cynicism levels of teachers have statistically significant differences in terms of factors such as gender, seniority, field, and school type. 464 teachers working in primary and elementary schools in Uşak Province in 2018-2019 academic year participated in the study. "Change Cynicism Scale" developed by Helvacı and Çavdar (2017) was used in order to determine the organizational change cynicism levels of teachers and "The Scale of Emotion Management Competencies in Change Process" developed by Helvacı and Öztürk Yüzer (2018) was used in order to determine the emotion management competencies of school principals. The data gathered were analyzed with SPSS 24.0 statistical software. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, ANOVA and Pearson Moment Correlation tests were used in order to analyze the data. According to the results obtained, there is a low negative relationship between the emotion management competencies of school principals during a change process and the teachers' organizational change cynicism levels. According to this; as the school principals' ability to manage emotions in the process of change increases, teachers' perception of change cynicism decreases. In addition, it was found that teachers' organizational change cynicism levels were low in total. Organizational change cynicism levels were examined according to teachers' demographic variables; it was reached there is no significant difference according to seniority variable. However, it was found that organizational change cynicism levels partially differentiated according to teachers' gender, school type and branch variables. In the study, it was found that the level of competence of school administrators to manage emotions in the process of organizational change is medium. The school administrators' ability to manage emotions of teachers in the process of change does not differ significantly in terms of gender and seniority variables. However, in terms of school type and branch variables, it is seen that school administrators' ability to manage emotions in the process of change differs significantly.