Investigation of the relationship between paternalist leadership and perception of organizational policy in education faculties

In this study, the relational survey model was used to investigate how research assistants in education faculties evaluated the political environment in the context of their paternalistic relationships with the professors with whom they worked. The universe of research consists of research assistants working in the education faculties of state universities in Turkey. In the study, stratified sampling and random sampling methods were used in stages. In the scope of the research, 459 research assistants were reached. The data for the research was collected via e-mail with the scales of paternalistic leadership and organizational policy perception. Parametric statistics are used in the analysis of the data. According to the results of the study, research assistants evaluate the professors they work with at a medium-high level in terms of benevolence, a medium-high level in terms of morality, and a medium-low level in terms of authoritarianism. While research assistants' perceptions of organizational policy are medium-high in the dimensions of doing what is necessary to raise and honesty/work ethic, they are moderate in general political behavior. Research assistants' perceptions of paternalistic leadership and organizational policy increase with organizational seniority, but they are similar in terms of gender. Although negative correlations were found between paternalistic leadership dimensions and organizational policy perception dimensions, it was found that paternalistic leadership was an important predictor of organizational policy perception. Based on these results, some suggestions are made for both practitioners and researchers who will conduct similar studies. Keywords: Paternalistic leadership, Perception of organizational policy, Research assistant