The relationship between principals? humor styles and both instructional leadership behaviours and organizational health of the school

The aim of this study is to examine the primary school teachers? perceptions about the effect of primary school principals? humor styles to instructional leadership behaviors and organizational health of the schools. The relationship between instructional leadership behaviors of principals and organizational health of the schools is also aimed to be examined within the scope of the study. This is a descriptive research in the relational survey model. The population of the study is teachers who work in the primary schools in Kastamonu province in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 Education year. 1046 teachers who work in the 70 primary schools were reached in the process of data collection.As a data collection instrument ?Humor Styles Survey?, ?Organizational Health Inventory? and ?Instructional Leadership Behaviors Questionnaire? were used. Frequency and percentage analyses, Independent Samples t-Test, One-Way Anova (ANOVA), Dunnett?s C and Scheffe Multiple Comparison Tests, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient, Multiple Linear Regression analyses were used in order to analyze data.Results from this study indicated that appreciator humor style is the most perceived one and nonhumorous style is the least perceived one according to teachers? perceptions. While principals? humor styles do not differ significantly according to teachers? gender, years in profession, years in current school, branch and educational level; principals? humor styles differ significantly according to teachers? age. Principals? instructional leadership behaviors and organizational health of the schools differ significantly according to teachers? perceptions of primary school principal?s humor styles. Evidently, the organizational health and instructional leadership rating of the teachers who work with the principals who have producer humor style is the highest; and the organizational health and instructional leadership rating of the teachers who work with the principals who have nonhumorous style is the lowest. Results clearly show that humor styles of school principals have a significant effect on determining the level of instructional leadership behaviors and organizational health of the schools and reinforce the thesis that humor is an important feature of leadership.While there are statistically significant differences in perceptions of teachers on the level of instructional leadership behaviors of principals in terms of teachers? gender, age, years in profession and years in current school; there aren?t statistically significant differences in perceptions of teachers on the level of instructional leadership behaviors of principals in terms of teachers? branch and educational level. While there are statistically significant differences in perceptions of teachers on the organizational health of primary schools in terms of teachers? gender, age, years in profession, years in current school and branch; there aren?t statistically significant differences in perceptions of teachers on the organizational health of primary schools in terms of teachers? educational level.When correlation results are analyzed, high significant positive correlation has been found between the variables related to instructional leadership behaviors and organizational health of the schools. In other words, the more instructional leadership behaviors of principals increase, the more organizational health levels of the schools increase. According to the results of regression analysis, school principals' instructional leadership behaviors were found to be a significant predictor of all dimensions of organizational health. In general, it can be said that most of the total variance about the organizational health of the schools has been explained by school principals' instructional leadership behaviors.