The relationship between leadership style and the empowerment level of the primary school principals

In this study, the relation between leadership styles and empowerment level of the primary schools principals was studied. The sample of the research consists of 312 voluntary participants who were selected via random method among the teachers who are in charge in Kadıköy, Kağıthane and Şişli provinces of Istanbul. Two scales were used in the research. ?Multifactor Leadership Scale? which was developed by Bass (1999) was adapted to Turkish culture by Korkmaz (2003). The scale consists of six factors and Cronbach alpha coefficients ranked between ,66 and ,88.?School Participant Empowerment Scale? which was developed by Short (1992) consists of six factors and Cronbach alpha coefficients ranked between ,68 and ,87. The Turkish translation of this scale has been done by the researcher (2008). Wilcoxon test was applied in the translation process in order to provide language equivalence and item-total correlations were studied to determine internal consistency. Since the distribution of the matters into subscale change in intercultural diversities the scale was subjected to explanatory factor analysis.In the research subscale of leadership and empowerment were subjected to various analyzes in order to determine to what extent they were influenced by independent variables such as gender, task, educational status and seniority. In the analyze of data, Independent Groups T test, One Way Anova, LSD test and Tamhane?s T2 test were used for the groups which indicate a normal distributions. Kruskal Wallis test and Mann Whitney U test were used for the gorups which do not indicate a normal distributions. Defining the relationship between subscale of leadership and subscale of empowerment was used Pearson correlation coefficient.On the basis of the findings obtained in the research, a strong relationship exists between transformational leadership and empowerment whereas a medium level relationship is found between transactional leadership and empowerment. An opposite weak relationship was found between Laissez-faire leadership and empowerment. Under the scope of main problem of the research, it was determined to what extent leadership styles determine empowerment level. As a result of conducted analyzes, leadership scale formed a regression equation in which components were independent and empowerment level was dependent variable. Transformational leadership component was found as the single independent variable which had a meaningful contribution to this equation.Key Words: Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, laissez-faire leadership, empowerment