The relation between the distributed leadership and organizational commitment in the elementary educational institutions (The case of Seydikemer)

Based on the perception of the teachers working at the elementary schools, the study aims to reveal the relation between the organizational commitment of teachers and the distributed leadership behavior of their directors. The research begins with the theoretical information about distributed leadership and organizational commitment. Running the processes of education and management efficiently at schools is possible through the participation of all stakeholders. Such a school environment can be created by a vision that requires distributed leadership approaches. Teachers working at these schools will have more organizational commitment as well. The aim of this study has been defined through these findings. The population of the research is comprised of the teachers working at the official schools in Seydikemer. The population of the research constitutes the sample of the research at the same time. A survey has been sent for each teacher and the ones came back have been analyzed. There have been 473 teachers in Seydikemer district within the year 2015 the study was conducted but for the research it has been reached to 271 (57.29%) teachers. The data collection tools are distributed leadership inventory, organizational commitment scale and the questions related to the demographic information of the participants. Distributed leadership inventory is composed of two subscales. Leadership functions sub-scale of the distributed leadership inventory evaluates the distributed leadership behavior of the principals, the chief assistants of the principals and the assistant principals. The other subscale evaluates the collaboration of the leadership team in the teachers' views. To evaluate the organizational commitment of the teachers the organizational commitment scale has been used which is developed by Porter et al. (1974). The surveys have been analyzed on SPSS statistics program and frequency analysis, factor analysis and discriminant analysis have been carried out. As the result of the study a meaningful positive statistical relation has been revealed between the distributed leadership behavior of the principals from teachers' perceptions and the organizational commitment. There has been a meaningful positive statistical relation between the distributed leadership behavior of the assistant principals and the organizational commitment. Though there has not been found a meaningful difference on the teachers' views related to the distributed leadership behavior of the principals, assistant principals and leadership teams in terms of gender and branches, there has been a significant difference referring to their seniority in the profession. With regards to the distributed leadership of the school management, the study has been considered to be a significant one in order to improve the organizational commitment of teachers. Keywords: Distributed leadership, organizational commitment.