The relationship between the servent leadership behaviors of principals and the organizational health of schools and teachers' life satisfaction

In this study, it was aimed to determine the relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of primary school principals and the organizational health of schools and teachers' life satisfaction in line with the perceptions of teachers working in public primary schools. In this study, descriptive survey and relational survey model were used. The population of this study consists of 1480 classroom teachers working in 104 primary schools in 10 districts of Mardin in the 2018-2019 academic year, and the sample of the study consists of 542 classroom teachers selected by stratified sampling method. The data of the study were collected by using the Servant School Leadership Scale consisting of 5 dimensions and 35 items developed by Öter and Dağlı (2020), the Organizational Health Scale consisting of 4 dimensions and 23 items developed by Doğanay and Dağlı (2020), the 5-item Life Satisfaction Scale, which was developed by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin (1985) and adapted into Turkish by Dağlı and Baysal (2016). The data obtained in the research were analyzed using the SPSS statistical package software. In the analysis of data, descriptive statistics, Levene Test for homogeneity, t-Test for comparisons, Mann-Whitney U Test, One-Way Analysis of Variance and Kruskal Vallis H Test, Scheffe Test for determining differences between groups, LSD Test and Mann Whitney U Test, Pearson Product Moments Correlation Coefficient for determining the level of relationship between variables and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis to determine the predictive levels were used. In the analysis of data .05 is accepted as significance level. Some important findings obtained from this study are provided below: • It was determined that the average perception of teachers' perceptions of the servant leadership behavior of their own school principals was high on all scales and sub-dimensions. It was determined that there was a significant difference in the service understanding and development dimensions according to the learning status variable and in all dimensions according to the marital status and professional seniority variables, but there was no significant difference in gender, school size and residential variables where the school is located. • It was determined that the perceptions of teachers about the organizational health of their schools were at a high level in academic emphasis and environmental health dimensions and at moderate levels of morale and supportive leadership at all scales. There is a significant difference in the perceptions of teachers' schools regarding organizational health in terms of academic emphasis and supportive leadership dimensions according to the learning status variable and academic emphasis size according to gender variable, all sizes according to professional seniority variables, academic emphasis and environmental health dimensions according to school size and school location variables, whereas there is no significant difference in terms of marital status variable. • Teachers' perceptions of life satisfaction were found to be moderate. It was determined that the difference between teachers' perceptions of life satisfaction was significant according to the changes in learning status, gender, marital status, professional seniority and the location of the school, however, it was not significant in terms of school size variable. • It has been determined that there is a positive and moderately significant relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of school principals, the organizational health of the schools and the life satisfaction of teachers. • It has been determined that servant school leadership as an independent variable, management skill and honesty dimensions were significant predictors on organizational health, whereas none of the dimensions of servant school leadership as an independent variable was significant predictor of teachers' life satisfaction as a dependent variable. Keywords: Primary school, teacher, principal, servant leadership, organizational health, life satisfaction