The relationship between cultural leadership, organizational loneliness and organisational alienation

Effective cultural leadership behaviors of school administrators significantly affect the organizational loneliness and organizational alienation levels of teachers who make up the school organization. It is expected that teachers' professional and personal performances will increase with effective cultural leadership behaviors. At the same time, it is thought that thanks to these behaviors, teachers will not experience loneliness and alienation. School administrators play a major role in developing an integrative school culture. This brings with it duties and responsibilities. For these reasons, the aim of the research is to determine the relationship between cultural leadership, organizational loneliness and organizational alienation. The research was conducted with an explanatory sequential design, one of the mixed research methods. In the quantitative design, the relational screening model was used. In this context, first of all, the "Cultural Leadership" scale was developed in accordance with the scale development steps. After exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, it was determined that the scale was valid and reliable. Along with the developed scales, confirmatory factor analysis was also conducted for the "Organizational Loneliness" and "Organizational Alienation" scales and their validity and reliability were confirmed. Quantitative data were obtained electronically. Qualitative data, which is the second stage of the explanatory sequential design, was collected with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher to help explain and detail the quantitative findings. The population of the quantitative phase of the research consists of primary and secondary school teachers working in public schools in Elazığ city center in the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 academic years. The sample group consists of 978 teachers who participated in the research voluntarily. Simple random sampling method, one of the probability sampling methods, was used in sample selection. Percentage, frequency, average, independent sample t test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation analysis, structural regression analysis and structural equation model (SEM) were used to analyze the sub-problems of the research. In the qualitative phase of the research, interviews were conducted with 20 teachers who also participated in the quantitative phase using the maximum diversity sampling technique, one of the purposeful sampling methods. Content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data obtained. The research results showed that there was a significant relationship between cultural leadership and organizational loneliness and organizational alienation, that there was no significant relationship between organizational loneliness and organizational alienation, and that organizational loneliness did not have a mediating effect on the relationship between cultural leadership and organizational alienation. Research findings have shown that the qualitative analysis results support the quantitative analysis results. Quantitative analysis findings determined that the cultural leadership behaviors effectively exhibited by school administrators have an impact on the levels of loneliness and alienation that teachers may experience within the school. It has been determined that as effective cultural leadership behaviors increase, teachers' levels of loneliness and alienation decrease. Qualitative analysis findings showed that if school administrators provide positive and effective school organization with effective cultural leadership behaviors, teachers' levels of loneliness and alienation decrease. It was determined that the results of both analyzes were similar. Keywords: Cultural Leadership, Organizational Loneliness, Organizational Alienation, Structural Equation Model.