Investigating the relationship between teachers' perceptions of authentic leadership and emotional labor and academic optimism

The leadership styles exhibited by school administrators directly influence teachers' Professional experiences, work lives and emotional processes. Specifically, authentic leadership with its emphasis on transparency, trust and ethical values, enables teachers to Express themselves more freely in the work place. While acaemic optimism represents a teacher's belief in the potential for success with in the schoool organzation, teachers also exert significant emotional labor while fulfilling their Professional roles. In this context, examining the realationship between administrators' authentic leadership behaviors and teachers' levels of emotional labor and academic optimism constitutes a vital research area for institutional productivity and individual well-being in educational organizations. This study investigated the relationship between teachers' perceptions of authentic leadersip baheviors and their levels of academic optimism and emotional labor. The research was conducted with 238 teachers working in primary, secondary and highschool affiliated with the Provincial Directorate of National Education in Mardin during the 2024-2025 academic year. Designed using the relational survey model, a quantitave research method, the study utilized descriptive statiatics and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation ansalysis for data evaluation. The data collection instruments included the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire developed by Walumbwa et al. (2008) and adapted into Turkish by Tabak et al. (2012); the Emotional Labor Scale developed by Diefendorff et al. (2005) and adapted by Basım and Beğenirbaş (2012); and the Academic Optimism Scale developed by Wayne K. Hoy (2006) and adapted by Çoban adn Demirtaş (2011). The results indicateed that teachers' perceptions of authentic leadership were above moderate levels. Regarding emotional labor, levels of "deep acting" and "expression of naturally felt emotions" were high, while "surface acting" was low. Academic optimism levels weere generally low, with a significant difference found only in the "trust" dimension in favor of male teachers. Correlations among all three variables were found to be low but positive and significant. A positive relationship was identified between total authentic leaderships cores adn the "trust" and "academic emphasis" dimesnsions of academic optimism, while a weak negative relationship was found with "self-efficacy". Conversly, no significant relationship was found between authentic leadership and emotional labor. When examining the relationship between emotional labor and academic optimism, a significant relationship was observed only in the dimensions of "naturally felt emotions".