The competencies of elementary school principals managing emotions according to the opinions of primary teachers and vice principals

One of the most important features that distinguish people from other living things is emotions. Individuals are intertwined with their feelings in business life as in their private life. In this context, it is important to be able to express, control, regulate and deal with negative emotions in an organizational environment. Generally, emotion management approaches of managers affect the emotional climate of the workplace. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the competencies of primary school principals to manage emotions in school environment in line with the opinions of primary school teachers and vice principals working in public schools. For this purpose, primary school principals' managing emotions in the school environment has been examined from various perspectives. The study was designed in a scanning model. To collect data, "Emotional Management Behaviors Scale of Managers in Terms of Management Processes" developed by Çoruk and Akçay (2012) was applied. The population of the research consists of teachers and vice principals working in public schools in Izmir. The sample of the study was determined by cluster sampling method, one of the probable sampling methods from 11 districts in the population. Thus, each school was accepted as a cluster. The research was carried out with the participation of a total of 522 people, 472 teachers and 50 vice principals working in 33 elementary schools selected for sampling. Some conclusions reached in the research are as follows: According to the teachers and their vice principals, the level of proficiency in emotional management of their principals was found at a high level throughout the scale and in all dimensions. In terms of gender variable, it was found that male participants perceived the level of competence related to emotion management at a higher level than female participants. From the point of view of the task variable, it was observed that the vice principals perceived the level of proficiency of their principals about emotion management at a higher level than the teachers, in all other dimensions of the scale and throughout the scale, except for the "coordination" dimension. According to the marital status of the participants, there was no significant difference between the averages of the scores of the groups regarding the emotional management behaviors of their principals, both across the scale and in all dimensions of the scale. According to the other personal characteristics of the participants, differences were observed across the perceptions of the participants across the scale and in some dimensions of the scale.