Examination of teachers' perception about administrators' leadership behavior and communication skills and teachers' vocational belonging

Schools can achieve their goals in a shorter time span if teachers' vocational belonging and motivation increases, and school administrators' leadership behavior and communication skills improve. For this purpose, this study aimed to examine teachers' vocational belonging and administrators' leadership behaviors and communication skills as perceived by teachers. In addition, the relationship between these variables and differences according to demographic characteristics were analyzed. For this purpose, a questionnaire created by the researcher, the "Leadership Behavior Scale", the "Interpersonal Communication Skills Scale" and the "Professional Belonging Scale" were used as data collection tools in this correlational research. In this study, the relational screening model was used. This study was carried out with 251 teachers working in Giresun in the second term of the 2018-2019 academic year. Research outcomes revealed that administrators' communication skills increased with an increase in their leadership behavior, and that an increase in leadership behavior and communication skills led to an increase in the professional belonging of teachers. It was observed that teachers with seniority of 16 years or more had a higher sense of vocational belonging than teachers with less seniority. Female teachers were more indifferent regarding administrators' leadership behaviors than male teachers. Primary school teachers tended to hold more positive perceptions towards school' administrators' leadership behavior and communication skills compared to secondary school teachers.